When Your Boss Asks What You Actually Do All Day, It’s Not a Casual Question

Many people working in the USA have to provide justifications for their activities in connection with various assessments, restructuring, or analyses of their productivity. Even though such actions are aimed at increasing productivity, they make a significant emotional impression because employees do not like to be asked why they do things.

It is typical to present employees' duties and show how their activities support certain organizational goals. The idea seems to be quite logical, but stressful for those who feel their worthiness under suspicion. According to the findings provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, organizations tend to pay attention to the importance of roles and tasks performed by their workers, and employees have to prove that their job activities are crucial for companies during their transformations.

Why companies are doing this

Organizations frequently implement them as part of a strategy to cut costs, minimize redundancies, and ensure that their personnel align with the organization’s changing needs, especially when funds are limited or when the organization is going through a restructuring phase.


In a paper listed in PubMed, it is shown that such behaviors are associated with organizational efforts to maximize the use of its resources and exert control over work processes, especially in highly competitive settings where performance and productivity are continuously measured.

Yet, although this may be the organizational motivation behind the evaluation, the employee perception might be quite the opposite.

How it affects stress and burnout

The task of explaining oneself can be stressful, especially when workers think that certain assignments are not necessary for their job or do not pertain to their duties. Thus, the conflict is created between the individual perception of his or her work and the perception of how management perceives that work.

According to the article found in NCBI, employees who perceive their assignments as unreasonable feel stressed because these assignments contradict their professional identity and sense of mission.

Furthermore, results of the study conducted by ScienceDirect prove that workers' attitudes towards such situations greatly rely upon their interpretation of the motivation for such demands, as unreasonable or unfair assignments cause strong negative emotions.

The role of perception in workplace experience

The way employees view these demands is very important in the formation of their emotions, since the very same circumstances might seem either justified or unjustified based on the clarity of their rationale. Employees are likely to be more cooperative when they understand that task evaluation aligns with the company’s interests.
If the reason does not seem clear or rational enough to them, it is quite possible that it will cause dissatisfaction and even demotivation.
As indicated in the same study from ScienceDirect, legitimacy perceptions form a crucial aspect in terms of determining if the employees will be cooperative or resistant to such demands.

Impact on identity and motivation

A job may be very much related to the person’s self-concept, and asking him or her to explain the purpose of daily chores seems to be challenging their very identity, as they put considerable time and effort into developing themselves professionally. This can lead to doubts concerning their self-worth in an organization.

According to research performed by NCBI, the discrepancy between how people view themselves and the way others judge them may cause them to lack motivation and become cynical, both of which are typical symptoms of burnout.

What this means for workplace culture

The frequent questioning regarding the purpose behind certain tasks can significantly affect the culture at the workplace, as workers will get used to feeling judged instead of getting the support they deserve, resulting in a lower level of engagement and collaboration, since they will concentrate on justifying themselves.

It is important to highlight that companies that strike a balance between efficiency and effective communication tend to establish a positive atmosphere in their workplaces. One must understand the psychology of such practices in order to create an environment that will benefit both employers and employees.

A small question with a big impact

Being told to justify what you do is, by itself, nothing to be concerned about. However, this phenomenon signals a much bigger change in evaluating work processes in modern enterprises. On one hand, businesses strive to increase their efficiency. On the other hand, people should realize that workers do not simply perform their job duties; they also have personal needs for self-realization.

The awareness of this dichotomy may enable both parties to have more successful discussions.