30 Lies That Employees Tell Their Bosses

Is there ever a reason for a worker to lie to a boss? Sure, but they aren't necessarily good. Ninety-three percent of workers lie "regularly and habitually" in the workplace, according to a survey by psychotherapist Brad Blanton — and that's more often than we would at home. So what are the lies we tell, and why do we tell them? We found a number that are not only common, but have been told so often that the truth can seem odder by comparison. It's not a one-way street, though. Here are 30 Lies Bosses Tell Employees. 

Related: 30 Ways Your Employer Could Be Cheating You

Why lie about a doctors' appointment? If you're over 50, you know. In a SimplyHired survey on workplace lying, it was noted that laws protecting workers against age discrimination didn't change the fact that long-term unemployment is higher among Americans over 50 — who fear replacement by younger, less expensive workers. Not only are older workers more likely to lie about having to see a doctor, but parents (37%) lie about appointments more than non-parents (31%). Again, despite such discrimination being illegal, an increasing number of workplace parents are suing employers for discriminating against them. Other employees, meanwhile, may say that they have a doctors' appointment to miss part or all of a work day. The pandemic likely amped up the situation.

Related: 25 Expert Tips for a Healthy Work-Life Balance While Working from Home

Nearly 60% of workers will call in sick to watch a sporting event, a Kronos survey once found, and while 80% feel bad about it, even that seemingly small lie can cost businesses 8.7%t of their productivity each year. Even 28% of workers at companies with paid time off lie to get a sick day, and those lies have consequences: 38% of employers have checked up on a sick worker (43% have caught an employee lying by checking social media posts) and 26% have fired someone for using a fake excuse.  

For more smart work-life stories, please sign up for our free newsletters.

Asked about lying on resumes, almost half — 46%— of more than 1,000 workers and 300 senior managers said in 2017 they knew someone who'd "enhanced" their credentials. That was up a whopping 25 points from a similar OfficeTeam survey in 2011. There are consequences to the lies, though: Roughly 75% of human resources managers have caught a lie on a resume, according to CareerBuilder, and only 12% would call back an applicant who lied. 

Related: Warning Signs a Job Isn't as Good as It Sounds

Around half of employers know if a person is the right fit for the job within the first five minutes of their interview, according to CareerBuilder. While 71% of employers say they'd take a job candidate out of consideration if they caught them in a lie, that still leaves 29% who'd let them continue the process. But it isn't as if the truth is always helpful: One manager said a candidate began an interview admitting he did not have the skills to do the job, and "fake it until you make it" was his philosophy. He did not get the position. 

More than half of women surveyed by SimplyHired admitted to hiding crying at work, and just 13% of men. Research has shown women are more likely to be judged for their emotions than male co-workers and are less likely to be promoted to leadership positions, meaning women polled were more likely responding with a male boss in mind while participating in the study.

In Western states such as California, Oregon, and Washington, SimplyHired found that 26%bof Republicans kept their political affiliation a secret, and 37% of Democrats living in the South said the same. 

Social media accounts for $15.5 billion in lost work production. It makes workers 13% less productive and imperils jobs altogether, as bosses pay increasing attention to the things workers say online. Workers have learned to close windows and go anonymous if they're going to use social media and keep their job. And now, working from home and being less supervised only makes it easier for many to get distracted by social media.

Related: How Social Media Can Land or Lose You a Job

Calling it a "side hustle" doesn't make it any less of a burden to work more than one job just to make ends meet. Bankrate once noted that some 37% of U.S. workers have second jobs. That's close to 8 million workers, the highest number in nearly 20 years. Critics suggest that number might be higher, but nobody wants to tell a boss they aren't being paid enough. 

If you are one of those 8 million Americans making an average $686 a month at a second job, you definitely don't want to tell your bosses they're paying you to do it. Whether you're using company resources for that other job or just company time, moonlighting while at your first job is typically frowned upon.

The cost of employer-sponsored insurance continues to rise, and employers routinely find ways around increased costs. Though there are state laws in place to prevent you from being fired due to illness, that doesn't prevent employers from at least trying. If they didn't, there would be no reason for the more than 1 in every 5 employees lying about illness.

There is a stigma attached to mental health issues in the workplace, which is why roughly 20% of workers have lied about it. Workers fear not only that stigma, but professional retaliation for their conditions. Meanwhile, the effort that goes into hiding those conditions — including depression and anxiety — costs American employers $100 billion a year. 

Related: How to Improve Your Mental Health During a Pandemic

Roughly 19% of employees admit using legal or illicit substances during work hours — compared with just 10.6% of the public at large — with employers having no idea.  

Related: Don't Believe These 19 Myths About Alcohol

Religious workers, as well as atheists, are protected in the workplace by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But nearly 17% of workers opt to keep their religious affiliation private or outright lie about it to bosses. Part of it comes down to privacy, but avoiding judgment or harassment and going along to get along is in there too.

The good news is that only 14% of workers admitted stealing from the company, with 59% of those saying they later felt bad about it. The bad news? About 1 in 5 government and public administration employees lied about stealing from their companies at least once in their careers. Your tax dollars at work.

Considering that many workplaces still frown on interoffice relationships between workers and their managers, it's for the best that not every boss-worker attraction is acted on. But 22% of employees have dated their boss at some point, and 30% have dated someone at a higher level in the organization. While this is okay in some workplaces, it still means notifying HR — and living with the rest of the company knowing.

In 2017, some 36% of workers told CareerBuilder that they dated a co-worker in the previous year. Of that group, 41% said they had to keep the relationship a secret. Not only do many workplaces make interoffice romance a human resources issue, but only 31% of workers who start dating at work end up with that person long-term. Some folks just like their privacy, but others just don't want to deal with more paperwork — even if it's a relationship disclosure agreement. Surprisingly, workplace romance appears to be on the increase despite the rise of the remote work environment. 

Related: Biggest Mistakes to Avoid at Your First 'Real' Job

Just 11.1% of workers have lied about having sex at work. It's a practice that's almost universally discouraged, but roughly 14% of workers admitted to having sex in the workplace. It isn't that the rest are telling the truth: It's that 19% of those adventuresome duos got caught in the act.

More than half of LGBTQ workers hide their sexual orientation. While more than 4 in 5 heterosexual employees in a SimplyHired study said LGBTQ co-workers shouldn't have to, more than half also admitted they'd feel uncomfortable if they heard those co-workers talking about their social life on the job. Also, fewer than half of all states prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. As a result, 1 in 5 of those workers look for an accepting environment when choosing where to work, and some have even left jobs for not accepting their identity. Meanwhile, 71% of men and women polled who identified as gay or bisexual in Southern states including Texas, Florida, and Georgia said they hid their sexual orientation from their bosses; more than half of people from the Midwest said the same.

Just 6% of workers lie about having a criminal history, which is pretty good when 650,000 people are released from prisons each year. While there are several impassioned arguments for hiring people with criminal records, and it's outright illegal to discriminate against them in certain cases, many people out of prison are faced with job applications asking them to check a box about their criminal past. While discouraging, experts agree that lying on those applications is far worse than telling the truth — especially with more resources now available to those with records.

Just 7.5% of workers have lied about being pregnant, fairly low considering that discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace is widespread (and the pregnant liars say they feel guiltier about it than those who lie about a criminal history). Parental leave options aren't great and, despite pregnancy discrimination being illegal, major companies continue to be sued over it. 

Expense report fraud costs companies an estimated $1.9 billion a year. More than a third of those caught were padding expense reports by between $100 and $500. Is that bad? Absolutely: It isn't your money.

Don't underestimate the power of "my kid's sick" or "my uncle died." When true, they'll earn you the sympathy of your boss and coworkers and a little time to deal with each. When false, as in the case of the 5.1% of workers who lie about such things, it doesn't speak well of you as a person or employee. There's a reason why 36% feel bad about it later, but it's still frightening that 64% are just fine with using fake family members to get a day off.

About 10% of workers have lied to a boss about sleeping at work. More than a quarter feel really badly about it. But we get it: The National Safety Council says 90% of workplaces are the worse for employee fatigue, but only 55% of employees adjust work schedules or responsibility as a result. While workers may have plenty of reason for sleeping on the job (like working from home in close proximity to a comfortable sofa), they still shouldn't.

Sometimes you just want to avoid an awkward situation. That's completely understandable, as that's still your boss and critiquing a manager's sartorial decisions still has unintended consequences. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia University, notes that not all lies are immoral. This one, in particular is pro-social: "Successful interpersonal functioning often requires the ability to mask one's inner feelings. Total honesty can take the form of amoral selfishness."

Now you're just dodging blame. As Chamorro-Premuzic points out, a self-preservative lie based on objective facts — "I graduated from Stanford" or "I will finish this project by Monday" — is self-defeating. You may not get in trouble for it, but it could damage your reputation if it's found out.

You may want to just satisfy your own personal agenda and get the boss out of the way, and that isn't always bad as long as it's for the benefit of your work and the company.

Stealing credit is terrible when bosses do it, but it's just as awful when a worker does it. Not only did you not put in the work that someone else did, but you're trying to mask an insecurity for your own gain. "Status-enhancing lies are also often used to establish or maintain close bonds with others," Chamorro-Premuzic says, but those bonds tend to shatter when the lies are discovered.

If you're going to volunteer for a project, make sure you can follow through. If you're going to make empty promises to gain status, just realize that not finishing what you started can diminish your reputation and ultimately hurt a career.

Gossiping might be about "framing yourself as an insider instead of an outsider," and if you pretend not to like someone because you know the boss doesn't like them, it may put you in the boss' good graces for a while, Chamorro-Premuzic says. But you might also look like a troublemaker sowing dissent.

You're just making small talk with the boss, right? So what if you haven't read the book that changed your boss' way of thinking forever? "You may instinctively answer 'yes' in order to avoid rejection," Chamorro-Premuzic says. "But this in turn actually increases your insecurity — what if you're found out? — which will increase your probability of continuing to lie in the future."