I recently commented on my theory about why the tech industry in general has a high turnover rate:


An interesting reply I received was regarding a phenomenon that is best termed as “ghost work”

But what is Ghost Work?
Mentally Clocking Out
The process of not caring about something usually has a trigger. The trigger could be your boss yelling at you for the fifteenth time, it could be that you broke up with your office crush, or it could be that the commute to work is so bad that you don’t have to do it anymore. Triggers itself is a complicated and nuanced topic best reserved for another day but for most workers, these are the most popular triggers:
Issues related to management, office politics, and your boss
Issues related to compensation and benefits
Issues related to quality of work
The moment when the most impactful trigger occurs is the trigger point.
Most things are secondary in nature since the above three issues in a positive lens compensate for negative aspects of work. Long commute? You get paid 200k, live closer. Bad boss? Independent projects. Bad work? Ask for something interesting. And so on. But a combination of the three creates something unique, and nothing can be done externally to motivate you into doing something useful.
The result of the above three issues combining is a person mentally clocking out of work but still continuing to work out of different needs and wants. These needs and wants could be money, stability, family, culture, and more. But the reason is secondary and in most cases doesn’t matter once the decision to clock out of work has been made mentally (a point in time which we will refer to as the decision point).
That is what is termed as “ghost work”
Different flavors of ghost work
Ghost work comes in multiple flavors which act as indicators on how prevalent ghost work is at a company.
The first identification someone is inclined to ghost work is them actively checking the clock and waiting for the day to be over. No one who is even remotely excited about their job waits for the clock on a daily basis (of course if its a weekend and you have a couple dates, you will check the clock).
The second is a lack of concern over the consequences of one’s actions. In a big org, analysing second and third order consequences is often a big task, and above the paygrade of most. But if a person does not care about the first order consequences of their actions, it is a cause of concern. And if the person continues to do this, it is a very good indicator of a person performing ghost work.
The third is office chatter around “what are we even doing?”. In a small org, this is a sure indicator of ghost work, and perhaps more important than the second one. If. you are in a startup and you do not know what the goals and objectives of your company is, you are most probably performing ghost work. In a big org, there are certain roles where confidentiality is important and this answer may not always be available. But again, in most big orgs, you generally have a structured process whose goal is to let you know what the objectives are. If you don’t understand, you are most probably performing ghost work.
For the purposes of this article, I term a person who performs ghost work as a ghost. Because their net value add to the org is zero and there would be no visible difference if they quit immediately. From the org’s perspective, they need to forecast future work demand (which ghosts could be part of) and balance that with the cost needed to keep the ghost around until future demand arrives. A classic demand forecasting problem.
The persona of a ghost
The typical persona of a ghost is the same as someone who always seems to be writing documentation. To say no one likes documentation is an understatement. People in any job, tech or otherwise, hate documentation, note taking, and keeping track of progress. And as a heuristic, if we assume people mostly want to do what they like and don’t want to do things that they actively hate, it is safe to say that people will only write documentation when they are forced to. And if you see a person who seemingly spends their entire day writing documentation, you have spotted a ghost.
Another ghost persona is whom I call a “future merchant”. A future merchant has already priced in their future exit from the company, and want to maximise their future value by working on leetcode (tech), coffee chats (banking), networking (consulting), and other activities. Optionality and pricing is another topic that I need to write on one day but the pricing in occurs shortly after the trigger point, when the brain automatically computes different scenarios and arrives at an average value for them. Once you price things in, you will only work up to the pricing ceiling and everything beyond that is reserved for your future expected endeavors outside the firm.

Ghosts are unavoidable
In a large firm where the recruiting pipelines are well defined, the firm is not looking to hire top tier talent. Instead, the firm is trying to reduce variance in efficiency and trying to have a more predictable workforce in terms of productivity (investors love guidance and hate variance, and it is easier to give guidance when it is easier to estimate total productivity of the workforce). Such a process is almost fitting for ghosts to take part in. The only question is how long will it take for someone to become a ghost?
In some firms, this is 6 months. In some firms, this is 18 months. Some other firms (like govt organizations), this is 1 month. As a heuristic, atleast 25% of an employee’s tenure is served as a ghost (trigger point is somewhere around the 50% mark). So firms need to act between the 50-75% average tenure mark if they want to have an experienced workforce.
Ghosts are harmless, until..
Some ghosts are unavoidable since entire professions are tailored towards ghosts and certain professions make people ghosts after working on it for some time. Such ghosts are usually harmless and happy at their jobs. They do not seek to do anything harmful to the organization because it is the nature of their work.
Most ghosts however, are not harmless. As mentioned above, office chatter is a major component of someone becoming a ghost, and most ghosts carry a negative / do not care attitude towards the org. When such ghosts interact with new / committed employees, they are sowing the seeds for future triggers. Again, unavoidable in a big organization but in a small startup, such ghosts must be let go immediately.
Can ghosts be salvaged
Say a star employee of yours becomes a ghost. But he holds huge potential and is critical to multiple parts of the organization. Can he be saved? The answer is: it depends on the timeframe.
If you identify someone closely after the trigger point, reconciliations can and should happen. At this stage, the employee hasn’t yet priced in him leaving the firm and will be happy to price a better future in the firm if given the choice to.
If the person is part the decision point where he’s priced in leaving the firm and is already looking for new opportunities, it is very hard to salvage such a person. The easiest way to get him back is to let him go, experience what it is working at another firm, and then pitch him a better future in the firm. This will lead him to price a better future in your firm from an outside perspective. And the way the brain’s biases work, this is better than convincing him of a better future from the inside.
Conclusion
Ghost Work is work that is a net zero add to the firm. People who perform ghost work can be colloquially called ghosts at work. Ghost work is not always a bug, sometimes a feature depending on the industry the firm operates in. Most ghosts are harmless until they actively corrode a firm through office interactions. And sometimes, the only way to salvage a ghost worker is by letting them go and inviting them back in after a period of time.