What Most Companies End Up Lying About When Hiring Someone?

Most companies choose to tell (or not tell) their prospective hires certain facts and figures during the interview process which cannot be labelled as truth exactly.

These facts and figures may, in fact, border on falsehood and are mostly what can perhaps be termed as smart lies.

These may be in terms of the following aspects:

• Reporting structure for the position for which the candidate is being hired - smart lies are very common on this aspect especially related to solid versus dotted reporting and role versus designation inequality
• The real place and the associated power of the position in the overall organizational hierarchy - this is what finally leads to organizational politics
• The policies in respect of employee benefits - HR folks are adept at smart lies in respect of selling of benefits such as insurance, leaves, promotions, rewards and recognition, etc.
• The informal power structures - analyzing who goes with whom for lunch is generally a precise way to understand the "actual on ground" political and power environment in an organization
• The presence of dead-wood in the company - this relates to certain roles being created for keeping some individuals due to loyalty factor who are actually no longer needed
• The working hours - the official and the real working hours may be so apart in some cases such that it makes a complete mockery of work-life balance
• The thing called culture - every company and especially its top man would claim that her company is the best and has an open, progressive culture and that simply can't be true
• Stooges of the top man - this is something no company will ever accept but presence and promotion of stooges is a sad reality
• Long time loyalists - the long time loyalists are the stooges as well in most cases and roam around breeding mess, interference, politics, incompetence, exceptions to policies, etc.
• Budget with the position - again another aspect where one should expect to get a lot of surprise and is driven by the overall level of professionalism and maturity in the organization

It is commonly accepted that it is a good idea to assess the effectiveness of HR not just in terms of how many they are able to hire but also for how long someone who is hired stays along.

And for improving the above parameter it is important for an organization to study the above aspects closely and carefully and then initiate actions for their remedy.

Otherwise, attrition rate will be higher than that what one would want it to be. Way too higher!