“Loud working” has become a growing feature of UK workplaces, with employees spending hours making their achievements visible to colleagues, managers and potential employers, research from finance platform Tide suggests.
The average worker spends 131 hours a year on self-promotion and workplace updates – equivalent to more than 17 working days, or 2.8 hours a week. The activity includes posting successes on social media, updating Slack or Teams, speaking up in meetings and telling colleagues about completed work.
The trend is particularly prevalent among younger employees. Almost 70% of workers aged between 25 and 34 are described as “loud working”, spending about five hours a week promoting themselves and their achievements.
‘Loud working’ can lead to promotions and new jobs
The approach appears to bring tangible career benefits. Tide found that 77% of loud workers had received at least one opportunity in the previous year, including new customers or clients, pay rises and promotions.
For 15% of those surveyed, publicising their achievements had also resulted in an award. A further 17% said they had been approached by another employer and secured a new job after becoming more vocal about their work.
However, the practice is creating friction among colleagues, with some workers saying they have considered leaving because of a workplace culture dominated by self-promotion.
More than one in four employees, or 27%, said they had thought about quitting because colleagues were too vocal about their achievements or because of a loud working culture. One in 10 said they had already left a job for that reason.
Workers aged 25 to 34 were again the most affected group. They were said to post about their successes at more than three times the rate of employees aged over 55, while almost half had considered quitting because of the trend and one in five had already done so.
Employees in IT, telecommunications and finance were the most likely to have become frustrated by what was described as a performative workplace culture. Men were more likely than women to have already resigned over it.
George Schmidt, Tide’s chief executive for the UK and Europe, said: “Loudworking has mixed reactions in the workplace and it’s easy to understand that a colleague who turns every small win into an announcement might be off-putting. But our research shows there’s a difference between being performative and backing yourself.”
Mr Schmidt said sharing work, achievements and expertise could be particularly important for small business owners, describing it as often their most effective form of marketing. He added that the same applied to people who had left employment to work independently or were considering doing so.
The findings suggest that while visibility can help workers secure recognition and new opportunities, employees also want businesses to reward strong performance rather than simply the people who make the most noise about it.
