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92% of HR professionals are lied to every week

Do you ever get the feeling employees aren’t being totally honest with you?

If so, you’re not alone. According to a survey conducted by People Management, 92% of HR practitioners think they are lied to each week.

Employees working in the travel and leisure and construction sectors are most likely to tell a fib, according to the survey which polled 820 HR people.

It found 29.7% of workers in travel and leisure tell HR lies more than 11 times a week, while workers in the construction and energy and utilities industry also tell around 11 lies per week.

When it came to bankers – whom HR professionals said they expected to tell the most lies – only 23.6% of them told more than 11 fibs per week, while medical staff appeared to be the most honest of the bunch, with just 15.2% telling the same amount of lies per week.

Overall, HR professionals said they believed they were being told more lies than two or three years ago.

HR professionals also claimed themselves as being the most trustworthy, with 41% saying they told no lies at all and 49.9% reporting they only told between one and four lies a week.

Roger Steare, an ethicist and corporate philosopher at Cass Business School, told PM people “modify” the truth to maintain lasting relationships.

“Anyone who says they never lie is deluded. If we were completely honest with everyone about everything we felt and thought all the time what would the world be like? We would probably end up killing each other,” he said.

However, he explained there is a difference between using lies to maintain relationships and using them for personal gain.

“The problem we have in many workplaces is that people are driven by fear more than they are than by higher ideals. People are scared of the truth because we’re afraid of speaking up to someone who has power or authority over our life in the business.”

People Management also reported they found some business using polygraph tests to check the sincerity of staff.

This included using lie detectors to vet job candidates for alcohol and drug problems as well as criminal convictions. Others use them to find staff who have leaked confidential information or committed fraud.

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