<p>The buzzword “lying flat” refers to a negative state of succumbing to reality and giving up effort making, and it has become a trend on Chinese social media in recent years. While rooted in the Chinese context, the phenomenon carries universal significance, resonating globally as a critique of modern work culture and unrealistic societal expectations. The popularity of lying flat has reflected a widespread resonance with the public mindset, and caused detrimental impacts on organizational work. This study aimed to explore the underlying mechanisms of employee lying flat within the workplace context, and recommend effective intervention measures for organizations to address the problem. In the first section, we initiated the term “workplace lying flat” (WLF), and provided a comprehensive theoretical framework of WLF through a literature review. We categorized WLF into 4 distinct behavioral representations. Based on the classification, 8 main underlying causes of WLF were identified, as derived from relevant classical theories. For each cause, we further listed some targeted intervention measures. In the second section, we conducted an online questionnaire survey using the improved “Workplace Lying Flat Tendency Scale”, to examine the validity of the predicted causes and effectiveness of the recommended interventions. Our results revealed that all 8 potential causes indeed led to an increase in WLF, and all 16 intervention measures indeed contributed to a reduction in WLF. Additionally, we pointed out that lack of motivation, career plateau, and learned helplessness are likely the most prone to causing WLF, while giving spiritual/material incentive, offering job rotation, and creating meaningful job design are likely the most effective interventions to reduce employee WLF for organizations.</p>