Around 87 percent of Indian professionals believe that sharing emotions at work could be the secret to better staff morale in the world of work, a recent study by LinkedIn revealed.
The survey revealed that nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of those polled admitted to having cried in front of their boss, and 32 percent said that they had done so more than once.
Although some Indian professionals were getting more comfortable than they previously had been about expressing their feelings at work, seven in 10 still felt that there was a stigma about sharing feelings at work.
Because of this, more than a quarter of employees are still worried about revealing their emotions for fear of looking weak (27 percent), unprofessional (25 percent), and being judged (25 percent), according to the LinkedIn study.
Employees hailing from the Gen Z (73 percent) and millennial (79 percent) generations were leading the way in expressing themselves and feeling more comfortable than ever to open up at work. Gen Z (41 percent) and millennials (47 percent) also feel the benefits of flexible working, as they agree it has encouraged them to open up more often in front of their colleagues.
Women were found to be bearing an unfair burden of emotional expression: almost four in five (79 percent) professionals in the country agreed that women were often judged more harshly than men were when they opened up about their emotions at work.
Ashutosh Gupta, manager of LinkedIn India, said: “The past two years have been tumultuous, to say the least, but have also made people realize that they can be more honest with each other at work."
To accommodate employees' changing needs to express emotions, LinkedIn also launched a new feature, ‘Funny Reaction’, for its members.