Why Your Employees Lie to You and HR Advice to Fix It

Leadership is never easy. You put your trust in your team to do what they say they will do and be upfront and truthful about what’s really happening. But every once in a while, you find an employee who might not be so forthcoming with the truth and it’s possible you’ve caught them in a LIE (insert dramatic music here). What’s an appropriate next step when an employee is found to be telling a lie?

Liz Kislik, an expert on interpersonal conflicts at work, wrote, “Even when you have concrete evidence of lying, it’s difficult to take action. We’re taught as children that lying is wrong — and devious. We may feel hurt that the other person didn’t trust us, or angry that they were able to manipulate and take advantage of us. But once you’ve gone through the normal reactions of hurt and anger, instead of losing faith in all your team members and your own ability to manage them, what can you do to try to rectify the situation?”

Kislik also gives three of most typical motivations for employee lying she’s seen in decades of consulting — and what to do about them.

1.     Fear of upsetting someone or triggering conflict.

Motivation — Some employees are afraid that you or others will have a negative reaction to the truth. They feel personally involved and are fearful of creating a bad outcome for themselves or you. They want to make sure that you’re not disappointed in them, or that you won’t have any need to discipline them.

What to Do — For employees who are afraid to be in trouble, it’s your job to help provide the psychological safety that will encourage them to tell the truth. This doesn’t mean that there are no consequences. But you need to make the point that they’re helping you do your job when they’re honest with you and they’re making your work much harder and riskier when they aren’t, so you’d rather hear the real truth as they understand it — even when it’s not the answer you said you wanted. You can use language like, “I need to be able to count on you and your data,” or “It helps me do my job when I know what’s true, even if it’s bad news.”

2.     Not wanting to expose their inadequacies.

Motivation — Sometimes, employees have gotten themselves in over their heads and don’t know how to extricate themselves. They try to make themselves look more effective than they are, or they may be trying to mask their own incompetence and lack of success, often because they can’t figure out why they’re not successful and don’t know how to fix the situation.

What to Do — You might change the delivery period for information or results so the individual has a higher chance of getting them right, or provide them with training and coaching so that they can effectively deliver against their goals without needing to bend the truth.

3.     Trying to serve their own ends.

Motivation — Finally, some employees have personal goals, like advancing their career, that they believe they can’t achieve honestly through good work. These employees can be even trickier to deal with because their lying often takes the form of subtly or not so subtly undercutting other team members.

What to Do — Be sure to document the lying employee’s behavior and your feedback so that you at least have a private record. If you’re dealing with someone who lies repetitively, it may be an ingrained habit that’s hard for the liar to break. Even if they suspend the habit temporarily, when they find themselves under pressure again, they’re likely to revert to lying as a coping behavior.

Our own HR expert Lorein Brightwell adds, “The three most important things in real estate are location, location, location…but in HR, it’s documentation, documentation, documentation. I’m sensitive to this fact as (practicing in California) I repeatedly hear ‘you can’t fire anyone in California’. This is so NOT true and deserves the time and ‘real estate’ of another place and time, but without proper documentation you may be left feeling like you have no hope in ridding your company of a lying ne’er-do-well.

While it’s true that some employees will lie to you, smart employers know how to recognize it and what to do. They KNOW PLB Resources is all over it. We can help you create the best response to curtail the behavior and get you fully in compliance while building your AMAZING workplace!

More info for smart employers:
https://hbr.org/2021/06/why-people-lie-at-work-and-what-to-do-about-it