The colleague who bounced up to your desk today with an annoyingly cheery ‘good morning’ may in fact be miserable inside, a report has suggested.
The study by consultancy DDI has reported that almost half of employees simply adopt a mask in the mornings and then go through the motions until it is time to clock off and head home.
The Faking It study argued that workers often develop a split personality at work between who they feel they need to be in the office and who they ‘really’ are.
Most just consider themselves to be ‘playing a part’ concluded the survey of 1,000 workers.
More than one in four – 45 per cent – said they left a part of their true selves at the front door, while a third felt under pressure to ‘conform to the corporate mould’.
This kind of behaviour, however common, was bad for business, warned DDI managing director Steve Newhall.
Staff who were more able to be themselves were four times more likely to be motivated by their job, he argued.
"Words such as passion, drive and energy are often used in discussions about performance at work, but these qualities are unlikely to show up in people who are holding back and not giving their all," he said.
