5 Tactics to Avoid Workslop: How People Skills Can Save Your Reputation

I have a super smart friend who really has a way with words. She confidently turned in her first paper at an Ivy League college, thinking she had aced the assignment. However, when the professor returned the paper, he had written, “This is very pretty, but you’re not saying anything.”

What happened? An early version of workslop. If you haven’t heard the term, Social Psychologist Kate Niederhoffer describes it as, “AI generated content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully move a task forward.” Have you seen it in action?

In the October series, Survive Grind Mode with People Skills, we’re discussing how people skills can help you power through tough sprints. Here’s the thing: Kicking out a bunch of random work is tempting when you’re in grind mode. However, there’s always a time when the “something’s gotta stick” approach bites back. When quality is left out of the mix, you may accidentally wind up generating workslop, and an all-hands-on deck effort is needed to clean up the mess. And just like that, your standing nosedives.

Luckily, you can sidestep these errors and keep your pristine reputation intact. Stick around to discover how people skills can help save and even elevate your reputation.

Workslop is a Cred Killer

Kate Niederhoffer’s workslop idea has hit the zeitgeist, so she was flattered to see a speaking invitation in her in-box. But trouble started when she found herself reading and re-reading.

She said, “I’m a quick reader normally, so I [thought], Why is this feeling so effortful? Also, this is so confusing!”

Then it dawned on her: The mail must be AI-generated. Her initial impression was that the person issuing the invitation was new to her work. But then it got worse because the work summary was completely incorrect.

The fascinating part was that the budget didn’t decide the outcome; the emotions the mail evoked did. Kate quickly moved on after concluding that the outreach was “confusion, annoyance, wasted effort, and then some serious layers of judgment. I don’t trust them. I don’t want to work with them again.”

Keep a Pristine Reputation with Soft Skills

Everyone knows that quality wins the day, but the case study shows the darker side: Workslop can damage your reputation in seconds. Bad work isn’t here today, gone tomorrow. It sticks to your reputation like gum on the bottom of your shoe.

When I read Kate Niederhoffer’s story, I remembered a quote from Dr. Vivian Zayas: “Individuals make impressions and judgments about people very quickly, very easily, and with very minimal information. And once those judgments are made, they tend to be hard to undo. They’re quite sticky.”

So, work with speed and intensity, but skip careless errors. Try these five tactics to avoid workslop—they all leverage people skill How qualities like collaboration, optimized productivity, and thought leadership:

1. Find a trusted collaborator to provide a second pair of eyes review for important work. Ask them for specifics about how to streamline or improve your results.
2. Do the unthinkable and take breaks. Self-care leads to clear thinking. So, try tactics like The Pomodoro Technique (work 25 minutes, then break for 5).
3. Operationalize what you can. Before you close the books on a big project, write down hacks and best practices. You’ll do less thinking from scratch the next time and have a resource for the good of the order.
4. Add buffer time in your production schedule. That time can be as much as taking 24 hours before you post a deck or as little as a 5-minute walk to get a fresh perspective. Clearing your head will help you see or fine-tune a critical detail.
5. Kickstart brainstorming by trying the simple AI prompt of, “Create a mistake prevention checklist for <insert role/job title>.” In seconds, you’ll get ideas you can customize.

Grind mode is already tough enough without the delays and do-overs that happen with workslop. So, keep your standards high and your results will follow. Your colleagues and future self are already thanking you!