Swipe left. Swipe left. Swipe right. Match! Awesome! Chat a bit, like what each other have to say. Go on a date. Oh my god! You’re nothing like your photos and your chat is more boring than concrete.

If you’re one of the 100 million downloads of Tinder, it’s likely you’ll recognise this process. But let’s flip that on its head for a second and replace the swipes with job interviews and the date as your first few weeks in a new role. Does it sound familiar?

At this point I have to declare that I’m certified, paid up millennial. I conform to many of the (unfair) stereotypes; I have changed job/career many times, I’m obsessed with new tech and I don’t care much for hierarchy or titles. However, I’m going to sound like an old man when I say what happened to a good bit of old fashioned honesty.

Those of you have dated far more recently than me can comment below about honesty in dating but I want to focus on organisational honesty. In a world where curating your public image is key; social media constantly pushes us to publicise the best versions of ourselves (when we’re sitting on a beach with a cocktail, when we’ve met a celebrity etc) and hide anything that may be deemed unwanted by societal norms. Why do companies abide by the same rules?

Mainly because they want to hire top talent and fear that even the slightest rough edge may scare them off. But what is the cost to the company of hiring an employee under what they perceive as false pretences, what is the cost of that employee’s dissatisfaction and lower engagement and what is the cost of that employee leaving and having to once again go out to the job market. We know that hiring the wrong person for even a short period of time can be between 5 times to 20+ times their remuneration. This is a huge blow for any organisation. (There isn’t much data around in these areas and anyone reading this who can help on that please let me know.)

But even taking a cursory look at Glassdoor.com and you will find reviews of people who are in the wrong roles. The CIPD stats show us that over half of all employees are disengaged with their work and a majority of those cite being overqualified as a reason. I would think it a reasonable next step to assume that most of those individuals didn’t choose to take a job they’d be disengaged with nor a job they would feel overqualified for.

What I’m calling for is greater transparency from organisations. (I’d also like candidates to be more transparent but that’s an issue for another time). The economist in me believes in being honest, understanding as much information as possible and trusting people to make the right choices most of the time. Therefore allowing efficient allocation of resources. More engaged employees. Greater productivity for longer periods. But this isn’t some touchy feely metric, it has a massive effect on your company’s costs and therefore its bottom line. A little truth and honesty can truly be financially beneficial.

We’ve seen Google’s Project Oxygen discover that psychological safety is one of the key determinants of high performing teams, we’ve seen Brene Brown’s TED talk on the power of vulnerability. How can we expect our employees to feel safe enough to be vulnerable if we manipulated and manage a false image of our organisation immediately destroying any trust that exists in the employee’s relationship with their employer.

It galls me further that in a world where we have reviewing sites such as Glassdoor companies continue to do this.  I even know a small company where the MD manipulated Glassdoor with fake reviews from various email addresses, while it may only be a sample of 1 this company has a huge problem with retaining talent. Quelle surprise!

Imagine a world where companies told you exactly what was going on, what the positives of working there would and what the real negatives are. Imagine those first few pictures were a real representation and your conversation went beyond just chat up lines. How many more of those dates would turn into marriages?