The green dot next to someone's name has become a strange proxy for commitment. Digital presenteeism is the practice of staying visibly "active" — moving a mouse, keeping a status green, replying fast to low-priority messages — regardless of whether any of it reflects real, focused output. It's the open-plan-office performance of busyness, just moved online.
This habit is exhausting precisely because it demands constant low-grade attention without ever producing the deep concentration that actually solves hard problems. Teams stuck in it report feeling perpetually behind despite being “online” all day, because the hours are spent managing the appearance of work rather than doing it.
Beyond the Green Dot
Getting beyond the green dot starts with what leaders choose to measure and reward. When output and outcomes are the visible metric instead of hours logged or response speed, the incentive to perform availability disappears on its own. We've seen teams formally block “focus windows” where status indicators are simply ignored by norm, not by policy.
The underlying fix isn't a tool setting. It's trust — managers who evaluate work by what got shipped, not by how quickly a status bubble turned green, give their teams permission to actually disengage from the performance and get back to the work.