Imagine a typical working day. You log in, your business chat starts popping up, emails keep coming, and the manager asks for progress reports on several tasks you are currently working on. Your calendar is packed with meetings, and the “to-do” list is jammed with tasks. And you can’t decide what to do first because everything feels urgent.
So, to achieve your ambitious agenda, you push yourself hard and try to finish all the assignments as soon as possible, with the new duties piling up. Your ability to distinguish between urgent work and tasks you can postpone or delegate is blurred. As a result, you feel overwhelmed and exhausted.
Does this sound familiar? Well, it looks like you fell into the trap of urgency culture, a feeling that you need to do everything right away.
Of course, some tasks are truly urgent and important because they are time-sensitive and critical. However, there are also matters that seem urgent at the moment, but actually don’t need to be done immediately — experts define them as false urgencies. A false urgency is bad for business because it steals focus from non-urgent yet essential activities.
In this blog, we will delve into the topic of urgency culture at work and how it affects employees’ day-to-day lives and wellbeing. Moreover, we will share expert tips on combating the false sense of urgency from managers’ and employees’ perspectives.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Urgency culture is a notion that every task needs to be done immediately.
- Culture of urgency exposes the body to chronic stress, deteriorating mental and physical health.
- Managers can combat urgency culture by setting clear expectations and fostering open communication with employees.
- To tackle false sense of urgency, employees can set clear working hours, turn off non-crucial notifications, schedule time blocks for different tasks, and take a 5-minute device detox several times during the day.
How a culture of urgency creates chronic stress
In today’s fast-paced work environment, the pressure of being constantly “on” and responding instantaneously to every request has a detrimental effect on people’s mental health.
Urgency culture forces employees to work harder, usually pushing their boundaries and putting their bodies in stress mode. But why does this happen?
A therapist, speaker, and bestselling author of What Are We Doing?! Radical Self-care for the Hustle Culture, Joelle Moray, provided an answer. She explains that the urgency culture “promotes the idea that value and self-worth are directly linked to professional achievements and productivity. This mindset can lead to chronic stress. Chronic stress is associated with a host of mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, ADHD, OCD, and burnout.”
In a work environment where every task is treated as a priority, people have no choice but to multitask.
Long-term, multitasking triggers stress and puts our bodies in the “fight or flight” mode. This response narrows focus, hinders the capacity for creative problem-solving, and raises levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine.
In workplaces where false urgency is embedded in company culture, exposure to constant stress is inevitable.
Finally, long-term disclosure to urgency puts the body in a constant state of alertness. The lasting activation of the stress response system and extensive exposure to cortisol and other stress hormones can disrupt almost all the body’s processes, leaving notable implications for our physical and mental health.
How urgency culture dwindles productivity
Our experts indicate the culture of false urgency also decreases employee motivation, satisfaction, and engagement, as well as affects company productivity.
Certified Professional Career Coach and founder of Career Bloom Coaching, Theresa White, says that in workplaces where urgency culture is common, people may feel they can never take a break, making it hard to stay happy and focused. “I’ve seen firsthand the effects: people get tired, make mistakes, and struggle to balance their work and personal lives.” She adds that the urgency culture ultimately affects teamwork, lowers productivity, and causes high employee turnover.
In addition to lower productivity, a “go-go-go” mindset fosters inefficiency, adds Chris Dukich, the founder of the company Display Now. “Teams get trapped in reactive cycles, compromising long-term strategic thinking and problem-solving, while strained mental health results in higher turnover and disengagement.”
In some cases, a false sense of urgency can appear as a consequence of management’s demands to outperform the competition faster and get products launched in a certain timeframe. However, Moray adds that constant urgency and pressure coming from the race for profit has diminishing returns. “Constant busyness leaves little time for activities known to bolster mental health, such as physical exercise, socializing, and engaging in hobbies. The neglect of these activities can exacerbate feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and depression.”
According to the Feeling Rushed? Perceived Time Pressure Impacts Executive Function and Stress Research, a heightened sense of time urgency and the pressure to continually achieve lead to chronic stress and eventually burnout and depression.
Moreover, Berkeley ExecEd writes that unresolved depression accounts for a 35% reduction in productivity.
Considering everything mentioned above, addressing the false sense of urgency at work is crucial for both employee wellbeing and business performance.
What role do managers have in creating a culture of false urgency?
Managers have a significant impact on employees — in a positive or negative manner. So, how do bosses create unnecessary hustle?
The CEO of the Catalyst Leadership Management consultancy and author of the Dare to Relate: Leading with a Fierce Heart, Cheryl Mason, points out that poor leadership and company culture are the most common culprits of the false urgency culture:
“The organization needs to serve and respond to customers but does that require a high tempo all the time? There are certain situations where this may be the case — medical, first responders, and the military — but even those try to build in respite time for their most valuable and important resource — their people.”
According to a Human Capital Innovations article by Jonathan H. Westover, professor of organizational leadership, leaders often unknowingly encourage false urgency by rewarding reactive behaviors, ignoring warning signs, and creating ineffective plans.
Reactive behaviors may include making rash decisions, emotional responding to issues, and finger-pointing, while absenteeism and decreased productivity are warning signs of false urgency.
Westover also notes that common tactics like aggressive deadlines, excessive meetings, and constant fire drills train workers to view everything as urgent. This affects the company culture and ensures employees never have time for thoughtful work, potentially causing more mistakes and lower quality of deliverables.
How to combat the urgency culture as a manager
Managers have a significant role in tackling false urgency.
Here are some suggestions on how you can prevent it.
Set clear expectations and encourage breaks
Employees look after their managers, following their approach to work. Therefore, to create a healthier work approach, managers must lead by example.
“Leaders need to set clear, realistic expectations, encourage regular breaks, and model boundaries themselves. Empower employees with time-management tools like project-tracking software and promote a culture where asking for help is seen as a strength, not a weakness”, suggests Dukich.
Foster open communication and engage with employees
As we established earlier, false urgency often triggers a reactive rather than proactive approach to work.
Mason advises managers to foster straightforward communication with employees and engage them on this issue:
“From my experience as a senior leader and chief executive, employees prefer to be proactive and prepare for situations rather than react. Reactive responses result in stress and missteps. When the leader includes employees in the discussion about what the tempo should be for customers, for stakeholders, and for output, employees begin to take ownership of the process.”
How to tackle a false sense of urgency as an employee
Despite mental health being a buzzword, many companies still don’t pay enough attention to the topic.
A corporate and employee wellbeing strategist and speaker, Ally Meyers, shares 5 simple strategies to help you manage false urgency at work and protect your wellbeing:
- Take 5 minutes of device-free quiet time, a few times a day. This allows you to refocus and prioritize what’s truly important.
- Set clear working hours and expectations. Have an open conversation with your manager to prevent the expectation of being “always on”.
- Disable non-essential notifications. This minimizes stress caused by constant and unnecessary alerts from your phone and computer.
- Schedule time blocks for deep work and email responses. This creates natural response cycles and boosts productivity during work hours.
- Communicate reply expectations. Use an email footer or out-of-office message to set expected response times and an emergency contact plan if necessary.
Preventing urgency culture preserves mental health
It has never been as hard and important to preserve our mental health as it is in today’s fast-moving way of life. Open communication, clear expectations, and firm boundaries can significantly reduce urgency culture at work and all its consequences.
Employees can’t change poor leadership practices in the workplace. What they can do, however, is take steps to relieve some of the pressure a culture of urgency imposes.
On the other hand, being at the forefront of company culture, managers have a crucial role to play in preventing false urgency. Thus, they should reflect on their leadership tactics to ensure they’re not promoting an urgency culture.
In the long run, when managers and employees work together to create a healthy, positive, and supportive work environment, everyone thrives.