Episode summary: Why Is Everything At Work So Urgent?
Why is everything at work so urgent, even when most of us aren't dealing with life-or-death situations? From last-minute requests to unrealistic expectations at work, corporate life can feel like a constant emergency, even when the work itself isn't particularly time-sensitive.
This episode of Track Changes On explores why a constant sense of urgency at work has become such a familiar part of corporate culture. Drawing on my experience moving from journalism into corporate communications, I look at the difference between genuine deadlines and the unnecessary pressure organisations create through poor planning, management behaviour and expectations around responsiveness.
We also explore the research behind workplace telepressure and the mere-urgency effect, which helps explain why people sometimes prioritise less important tasks simply because they appear urgent. And we look at how bad managers and organisational hierarchies can contribute to unrealistic deadlines, even when nobody intended to create an emergency.
Finally, we discuss practical ways to manage competing priorities, question unreasonable deadlines and improve time management without damaging workplace relationships. It's a useful perspective on why corporate culture can feel toxic, and what employees and leaders can do to reduce unnecessary pressure.
In this episode
* Why everything at work seems urgent, even when the consequences of delay are minor
* What working in journalism taught me about genuine deadlines
* Why corporate workplaces confuse responsiveness with commitment and performance
* How workplace telepressure creates expectations of immediate availability
* Why employees often overestimate how quickly managers expect email responses
* How seniority and organisational hierarchy can turn routine requests into urgent priorities
* Why poor planning and delayed management decisions create last-minute emergencies
* What the mere-urgency effect tells us about how deadlines influence our priorities
* How constant interruptions affect concentration and productivity
* Why unrealistic expectations at work can make effective time management difficult
* How to question deadlines and negotiate priorities without appearing uncooperative
* What managers can do to reduce unnecessary urgency within their teams
Research referenced in this episode
Larissa K. Barber and Alecia M. Santuzzi, Please Respond ASAP: Workplace Telepressure and Employee Recovery (2015), Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Barber and Santuzzi examine workplace telepressure, the preoccupation with and urge to respond quickly to work-related messages. Their research helps explain why employees can feel compelled to remain available and respond immediately, even without an explicit instruction from their manager. Workplace telepressure is also associated with difficulty psychologically disconnecting from work.
Laura M. Giurge and Vanessa K. Bohns, You Don't Need to Answer Right Away! Receivers Overestimate How Quickly Senders Expect Responses to Non-Urgent Work Emails (2021), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Across eight studies, the researchers found that recipients of non-urgent work emails sent outside working hours tended to overestimate how quickly senders expected a response. Their findings suggest that unspoken assumptions about availability can create unnecessary workplace pressure, while explicit communication about response expectations can help reduce it.
Meng Zhu, Christopher K. Hsee and Yang Yang, The Mere Urgency Effect (2018), Journal of Consumer Research. This research examines how deadlines influence people's decisions about which tasks to prioritise. The experiments found that people sometimes chose less valuable tasks simply because they appeared more urgent. The findings offer a useful explanation for why employees may interrupt important work to deal with lower-value requests that carry an immediate deadline.
Research on leader procrastination and employee work outcomes, From Self-Defeating to Other-Defeating: Examining the Effects of Leader Procrastination on Follower Work Outcomes. This study of 250 employees and 23 supervisors examined how procrastination by managers affects employees. It found an association between leader procrastination and employee frustration, helping explain why delays in management decisions can have consequences for people further down the organisation.
Ashley Whillans and colleagues, research on deadline extension requests. Research examining how employees and managers perceive requests for additional time found that employees often overestimate the reputational consequences of asking for a deadline extension. The findings suggest that employees may have more room to negotiate realistic delivery dates than they assume, although managers can be less receptive when deadlines are genuinely high stakes.
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