'Botsitting' and 'Effort Recession': What these new workplace trends mean for HR

The workplace has a new vocabulary.

Just as terms like quiet quitting, coffee badging and career cushioning became shorthand for changing employee behaviour, 'botsitting' and 'effort recession' are now entering the HR lexicon.

At first glance, the two trends appear unrelated. One is driven by artificial intelligence. The other reflects changing employee attitudes towards work. Together, however, they point to a broader shift in how work is experienced, managed and measured.

For HR leaders, they raise an important question: if technology is making work faster, why are employees feeling more exhausted and less willing to do extra?

The rise of 'botsitting'

Artificial intelligence was expected to eliminate repetitive work. Instead, many employees are spending a significant portion of their day supervising AI.

A new report by Glean, based on a survey of 6,000 digital workers, describes this phenomenon as 'botsitting'.

Researchers define botsitting as the work required to make AI usable, including:

• Feeding AI missing context
• Checking outputs for accuracy
• Correcting mistakes and hallucinations
• Rewriting prompts
• Cleaning up responses that appear confident but are incorrect

According to the report:

• 87% of employees now use AI at work.
• Around 75% believe AI improves their productivity.
• AI saves employees an average of 11 hours each week.
• Yet only 13% believe AI has improved their organisation's overall performance.

The reason, researchers suggest, is simple. Much of the productivity gained through AI is lost supervising the technology itself.

Employees spend almost 6.4 hours every week botsitting, effectively losing almost an entire working day. The report also found:

• 37% of employees' weekly AI time is spent botsitting.
• 36% is spent using AI to produce actual work.
• More than one-quarter of AI time goes towards learning and building AI agents.

In effect, employees spend almost as much time fixing AI as they do benefiting from it.

Why HR should care

According to Eva Spatz, Vice President and Head of People Experience at Staffbase, botsitting is not simply a technology issue.

Speaking to HR Executive, she described it as "fundamentally an HR issue."

Spatz said the behaviour often reflects a lack of trust and psychological safety rather than shortcomings in software.

Employees who fear AI mistakes could affect their performance or job security become highly cautious operators, spending increasing amounts of time verifying AI-generated work instead of focusing on higher-value activities.

The report warns this hidden work carries a significant talent cost.

Researchers found botsitting is often invisible, unsupported and unrecognised. Employees who spend the most time managing AI are also significantly more likely to experience fatigue and actively look for new jobs.

Then comes 'effort recession'

If botsitting reflects how employees interact with technology, effort recession captures how they are beginning to engage with work itself.

According to Great Place To Work India's latest workplace studies, nearly 63% of Indian organisations say employees are becoming less willing to put in discretionary effort beyond their formal responsibilities.

Discretionary effort includes:

• Volunteering for additional responsibilities
• Solving problems outside assigned roles
• Contributing ideas beyond day-to-day tasks
• Going the extra mile to support customers or colleagues

The findings draw on feedback from more than 5.7 million employees across over 20 industries, making the studies among the largest assessments of workplace culture in India.

The research also found discretionary effort has fallen 4% since 2023, suggesting the trend is becoming more pronounced.

Importantly, the report says this is not because workplaces have deteriorated.

Employee experience has improved in several areas, including benefits and workplace quality. Yet organisations are seeing lower levels of voluntary commitment.

As the report notes, "Work is becoming a better place to be, but not necessarily a stronger reason to strive."

Gen Z is changing workplace expectations

The studies suggest changing workforce demographics are accelerating effort recession.

Since 2023, the proportion of Gen Z employees in India's workforce has doubled from 13% to 26%.

According to the research, younger employees increasingly prioritise:

• Flexible work
• Meaningful careers
• Transparent career growth
• Purpose-driven organisations

Nearly one in two CHROs admitted they still do not clearly understand what motivates younger employees.

Meanwhile, 58% said they are simultaneously managing Gen Z's changing expectations while preparing their organisations for AI-driven transformation.

The trend is particularly visible across:

• Information technology
• Professional services
• Construction, infrastructure and real estate

Manufacturing has remained comparatively resilient.

AI may be adding another layer of pressure

The reports suggest these two workplace trends may be more connected than they initially appear.

While organisations continue investing heavily in AI, many employees report spending increasing amounts of time supervising technology instead of focusing on meaningful work.

At the same time, employees appear less willing to contribute effort beyond formal job expectations.

According to Great Place To Work India, two in five CHROs identify uneven AI adoption across teams as their biggest challenge.

Only about one in four organisations currently measure AI success using business outcomes such as revenue growth or customer impact.

Researchers warn AI can unintentionally increase pressure by creating faster workflows, tighter deadlines and higher expectations without necessarily reducing workloads.

Leadership may become the deciding factor

Despite the emergence of these new workplace trends, both reports arrive at a similar conclusion.

Technology alone cannot solve employee engagement.

Glean recommends organisations build the "human infrastructure" around AI through manager capability, psychological safety and clearly defined human oversight.

Similarly, Great Place To Work India found organisations with high-trust leadership report:

• 47% higher productivity
• 56% greater agility
• 34% more innovation
• 52% stronger customer appreciation

For HR leaders, botsitting and effort recession are more than new workplace buzzwords. They are early indicators of a changing relationship between employees, technology and work itself.

One reflects the hidden cost of managing AI. The other reflects declining willingness to go beyond formal responsibilities.

Together, they suggest the next phase of workforce transformation will depend not only on smarter technology, but also on designing workplaces where people have the confidence, clarity and motivation to do their best work.