Being seen at the office: what can your manager infer?
In a relationship with a manager, being regularly seen at work can shape a professional image without making the work itself any clearer. The useful question is therefore specific: how can visible presence be prevented from becoming the default criterion for assessing contribution?
What the literature establishes
Kimberly D. Elsbach, Daniel M. Cable and Jeffrey W. Sherman (2010, Human Relations) show that simply being seen at work can trigger spontaneous inferences about an employee’s qualities, even without information about their activity. In their research, presence during normal working hours encourages perceptions of dependability, while presence outside those hours encourages perceptions of commitment. This finding concerns judgements about the person, not a demonstrated improvement in performance.
The available cue is not always the most relevant
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1973, Cognitive Psychology) describe the availability heuristic: some estimates rely on how easily examples come to mind. This mechanism offers a possible interpretation: a manager may recall observed presence more easily than less visible contributions. Applying it to the reporting relationship remains an interpretation, not a finding directly tested in that article.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that staying later is necessary to maintain a good relationship with a manager. That would turn a perceptual bias into a behavioural prescription, without evidence of a benefit to the work. The useful distinction is instead between presence needed for coordination and presence used as a substitute for examining contributions. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these findings cannot settle
These studies do not directly measure how current hybrid working arrangements affect managerial assessments. Nor do they establish that every requirement to be present is arbitrary: some activities require on-site availability. Practice becomes questionable when this operational constraint remains entangled with judgements about work quality.
A practical check in Vevey
In Vevey, across the global food industry, group headquarters and Riviera SMEs, an exercise within SHR’s programme « Construire une relation efficace avec son manager » could involve distinguishing, with the manager, between a project’s presence requirements and evidence of contribution. Over four weeks, record the manager’s explicit assessments of that project and their basis: a verifiable deliverable, necessary coordination or presence alone. Then calculate the proportion of assessments supported by a deliverable or a coordination event, retaining examples so that the classification can be checked. This record provides a basis for discussing the criteria actually used, not for diagnosing managerial bias on its own. To go further: explore the Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager training in Vevey in the canton of Vaud, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Building an Effective Relationship with Your Manager in Vevey
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