Some members of large organisations seemingly do work, but actually contribute negatively by wasting other people’s time. For example, by sending mass emails, adding regulations, changing things for the sake of changing them (and to pad their CV with „completed projects”) or blocking change with endless committees, consultations and discussions with stakeholders. Even if there is a small benefit from this pretend-work, it is outweighed by the cost to the organisation from the wasted hours of other members. It is difficult to distinguish such negative-value-added activity from positive contributions (being proactive and entrepreneurial, leading by example). Opinions differ on what initiatives are good or bad and how much communication or discussion is enough.
Asking others to rate the work of a person would be informative if the feedback was honest, but usually people do not want to officially criticise colleagues and are not motivated to respond thoughtfully to surveys. Selection bias is also a problem, as online ratings show – the people motivated enough to rate a product, service or person are more likely to have extreme opinions.
Modern technology offers a way to study the revealed preferences of all members of the organisation without taking any of their time. If most email recipients block a given sender, move her or his emails to junk or spend very little time reading (keeping the email open), then this suggests the emails are not particularly useful. Aggregate email activity can be tracked without violating privacy if no human sees information about any particular individual’s email filtering or junking, only about the total number of people ignoring a given sender.
Making meetings, consultations and discussions optional and providing an excuse not to attend (e.g. two voluntary meetings at the same time) similarly allows members of the organisation „vote with their feet” about which meeting they find (more) useful. This provides an honest signal, unlike politeness-constrained and time-consuming feedback.
Anonymity of surveys helps mitigate the reluctance to officially criticise colleagues, but people may not believe that anonymity will be preserved. Even with trust in the feedback mechanism, the time cost of responding may preclude serious and thoughtful answers.