Survey: Half of Managers Also Fabricate Excuses for Leave
A survey by software company PDFFly of 2,000 managers and senior executives found that 85% of managers suspect employees fabricate excuses for extra leave during the summer, but half of the managers admit to doing the same thing themselves.
Managers believe employee excuses include pretending Wi-Fi is down, false dental or doctor appointments, and even "sick leave."
Managers themselves admit to excuses such as fake sick leave, exaggerated family matters, false appointments, or technical issues, with nearly 10% logging in without working at all.
Sixty percent of managers acknowledge a decline in productivity during the summer, with 18% reporting a significant decline, 42% a slight decline, and 37% a decline of over 10%.
Excuses are nearly identical between entry-level employees and managers.
From a market mechanism perspective, the decline in summer productivity coexists with mutual fabrication of leave excuses, as resources and attention shift from strict attendance monitoring to discussions on flexible work arrangements. Event-driven investigations have heightened concerns about trust in remote and hybrid work, benefiting companies that promote transparent leave policies while putting pressure on management that relies on traditional attendance assessments.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
PDFFly, as a software company, reveals the symmetry between managers and employees in leave excuses through its summer survey. Previous studies on heat waves or productivity have shown that high temperatures affect decision-making. This data continues the quantitative path regarding workplace integrity and seasonal laxity, similar to other HR surveys that expose the consistency of behavior between superiors and subordinates.
From a capital perspective, the survey results are disseminated by the media to spark discussions, highlighting the difficulties of supervision under remote work. Resources are shifting from traditional office culture to more flexible policies, forming a closed loop from data exposure to adjustments in management practices.
Drawing parallels to the trust crisis in remote work post-pandemic and the phenomenon of "quiet quitting," the current survey is in a phase of symmetrical exposure where both employees and managers are implicated in the narrative of laxity. The industry position has shifted from one-way monitoring of subordinates to a two-way reflection on behavior.
Structural judgments belong to regulatory changes (internal management norms), while the mechanism lies in remote tools making it easier to implement false excuses, leading to convergence in behavior between superiors and subordinates, resulting in the failure of traditional attendance control and prompting companies to redefine productivity and trust mechanisms.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- High symmetry in excuses between managers and employees
- Summer productivity decline is a result of mutual behavior
- Remote tools turn supervision into a game of mutual suspicion