The role of faking in modern workspace
In the modern world centered around better human interactions companies aim to have the most positive yet most natural employees so that the communication can be as enjoyable for the costumer as possible. This is a direct effect of expecting higher and higher standards as an employer to pose on your employees. But this may lead to negative effects and compel the employees to take an easier way out and to just fake it.
When we think about faking on a job, one of the first things that comes to mind is forced positivity in retail. When for the duration of a workday cashiers are supposed to forget about their identity and become corporate beacons of positivity so that customers are greeted with a smile no matter what. This dismissal of identity is ideal for the corporation that treats the employees as part of their brand, but is devastating to the well-being of the employees, mostly mental causing mental hardships such as feelings of dehumanization and increasing apathy. In a study conducted by A. A. Grandey and team it has been observed that faking, and suppressing emotional expressions (i.e., surface acting) is corelated to alcohol consumption [1]. For me, it would be acceptable for the retail workers to have an attitude of “I’m not in this job because it makes me happy but because it pays for my bills” if that means better wellbeing of the workers as a backbone of our society.
Let’s be honest, we all had that moment in our jobs where all the work was done but the workday wasn’t quite over yet, so we had to do something creative to make ourselves look busy. This type of faking work is quite prevalent in technical jobs and mainly task-based jobs where most of the tasks are separatable and non-dependent. In the ideal work scenario, that some bigger companies already practice, is to let the employee to manage their own time, as long as the work is being done. This means that if the task is done in shorter time, the employee either can focus on work unrelated activities or letting the employee run out the workday by self-education through provided courses. This system rewards more efficient workers and promotes work related personal growth that leads to quicker execution of work tasks. The exact opposite is a system that punishes the employee for completing task more efficiently by assigning them more work usually based on “if you finished early the work must have been too easy”. This discourages the employees from making any kind of progress in efficiency. Unfortunately, this is how most of the companies tend to work.
But nonetheless, not all instances of faking in a job are bad. The notion of “fake it till you make it” has been generally accepted as positive as it can lead to broaden persons horizons both in personal life as well as in professional career. This may vary from slightly exaggerating a fact or two about oneself to in extreme cases outright lying in ones resume to get a better job. If this risk is successful, it can pose a great opportunity for the new hired in professional growth and job satisfaction. The faking can also be used for better person-organization fit, to more adhere to company’s culture. This has been studied in paper Faking to fit in: Applicants’ response strategies to match organizational culture. by Nicolas Roulin [2] which suggests that faking is a person’s mechanism to fit in and should not be looked at as an act of deliberate dishonesty.
[1] Grandey, A. A., Frone, M. R., Melloy, R. C., & Sayre, G. M. (2019). When are fakers also drinkers? A self-control view of emotional labor and alcohol consumption among U.S. service workers. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 24(4), 482–497. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000147
[2] Roulin, N., & Krings, F. (2020). Faking to fit in: Applicants’ response strategies to match organizational culture. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(2), 130–145. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000431