Organisations should promote team-building activities and bonding sessions among all members of their workforce not to boost morale, but to stop staff lying.
Such is the recommendation from a study presented this week to the British Psychological Society, which examined when and how deception is most likely to occur in the workplace.
It found that up to a third of workplace communications, including face-to-face, phone and e-mail, involved some form of deception, while a further 15% of workers “admitted to actually lying.”
The most common forms of deception were distortion, withholding information, providing ambiguous information or changing the subject in order to deceive.
Co-author of the study, Dr Sandi Mann of the University of Central Lancashire, said the findings prove that “deception occurs frequently” in everyday workplace communications.
“Some types of deception occur more frequently than others and managers and employees should be on their guard for these,” she said.
Her comments refer to the finding that speaking to a work colleague face-to-face is more likely to win the speaker a truthful response, than communicating with them by phone or e-mail.
“Not only does deception occur less frequently in face-to-face interactions,” she added, but also when people are communicating with those that they feel closer to.”
Study co-author Ms Wincy Shek reflected: “Therefore managers may be wise to encourage team-building and bonding activities in order to develop psychological closeness between themselves and their subordinates and also within all employees.”
Jan 16, 2007
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