Why is everyone talking about… glossing?

Welcome to Personio Pulse: This Week in HR, where each week we take a look at the latest trends in the world of work, what you need to know about them, and what they mean for you as an HR professional.

This week, we’re discussing how the latest phenomenon of 'glossing' is impacting workplace culture and what your HR team should know about it.

What you need to know?

Are the leaders in your organization ‘glossing’ over potentially dire workplace issues? According to some of the latest data from a recent Leadership IQ poll, only 23% of employees feel that their leaders respond constructively to their problems. Additionally, they found that 65% of employees feel their organizations are not doing a good job openly sharing the challenges they face.?

This could be partially explained by what’s recently been dubbed “glossing,” where leaders simply ignore the issues within their teams in favor of a strictly positive outlook. This has resulted in employees feeling like their organizations are less transparent about the challenges they face, which we know to be bad for business.?

In our own research at Personio, we charted a distinct correlation between employees who feel their organizations are transparent about the challenges they’re facing with higher rates of satisfaction (95%) and performance (91%), and lower rates of churn (25%). Glossing isn’t something that just demoralizes workers, it can go on to suppress productivity and innovation writ large.?

What others are saying about it?

The behavior of glossing can be traced back to cultures of toxic positivity.

“Toxic positivity is the pressure to express only a small range of the spectrum of human emotions, so that anything that isn’t cheerful and upbeat is repressed and avoided,”

explains Angela Amias , a therapist and founder of Healthy Relationship Academy, a workplace wellness training program.?

Environments of toxic positivity often pave the way for actions like glossing. And while we can’t entirely fault managers for trying to “look on the bright side” and focus on the positives, ignoring very real problems to such a degree can make them far worse.?

As David Rice , an HR expert at People Managing People , said in conversation with Indy100:

“[Glossing] causes people to believe that [managers] don't hear them, either wilfully or through ignorance. It also leads people to question your connection to reality and whether or not you're ever genuine.”

What that means for you

Glossing is a leadership behavior that stems from a cultural issue of toxic positivity. To address it, here are some steps your HR team may want to consider:?

• Hone in on change management: Consider doubling down on change management to help both leaders and employees understand the variety of ways in which we cope with change in the workplace (both the good and the bad).
• Focus on feedback skills: Glossing becomes an issue when leaders are not receptive to negative feedback or criticism of any kind. Invest resources into training people on constructive feedback and how leaders can work with it to turn negatives into positives.?
• Build leadership development programs: Managers are multipliers in your organization. If you want them to exhibit certain behaviors, you need to transparently train them up on what your business considers to be a priority. It may be time to launch a full-fledged program.?
• Create support systems: Offer resources such as employee assistance programs and mental health workshops. Ensure employees know where to turn for support when facing challenges.

What else should I read?

• Managing Toxic Productivity at Work
• Why Is Everyone Talking About… Productivity Paranoia?
• 10 Change Management Models for Successful Organisational Change

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