Can You Bring Your Whole Self to Work?
By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
Are you the same person at work as you are at home? For many women, especially those working in male-dominated industries like the financial services, law, or technology, the answer is no. Whether that means feeling pressured to conform to outmoded gender stereotypes or to leave family concerns at the door, in some organizations or teams, there is an expectation that workers fit a certain persona.
We’ve heard many times the exhortation that we should bring our “whole selves” to work, that we should be able to bring our whole selves to work. But what happens when it’s clear our “whole selves” aren’t welcome in the office?
A new paper, published in the Academy of Management Review‘s fourth quarter issue, describes the ways people navigate identity expectations at work. The authors, Lakshmi Ramarajan, Harvard Business School, and Erin M. Reid, Boston University School of Management, explain the pros and cons of different coping strategies for employees and for organizations.
According to Ramarajan and Reid, when people feel their work and non-work selves are harmonized, they are less stressed out and more productive. That’s why companies should push the inclusion agenda, rather than trying to force out differences of personality and passion that bring true diversity to the workplace.
Increasing Tension Between Selves
Ramarajan and Reid article is called “Shattering the Myth of Separate Worlds: Negotiating Non-Work Identities at Work.” They say the tension between work and non-work personae have become more fraught over the past 20 years for three reasons. First of all, job security has decreased over the past two decades, meaning people are relying more on their personal networks to find and keep jobs – which means there’s more mixing of work and personal relationships. Second, they write, diversity has increased in the professional realm significantly. They write:
“Although women and minorities are making their way into previously homogeneous roles and occupations, organizational and occupational entry, socialization, and promotion processes are often based on the images of previous successful workers… Not fitting this image might heighten workers’ attention to their disqualifying nonwork identities…”
Meanwhile, those accustomed to homogeneity may have never had reason to consider difference before. “Heightened diversity may also make nonwork identities more salient for all workers simply by placing people more frequently in interactions with demographically different colleagues,” they explain.
Third, they say, as technology enables (and some might say forces) people to bring work home, the boundary between work and non-work selves becomes blurred or erased. It’s no longer possible for people to keep work and non-work identities separate – and that, they say, can be difficult for people to navigate.
Coping Mechanisms
Ramarajan and Reid lay out a few different strategies that people use to navigate this confusing and sometimes conflicting reality. For some, it’s easy to incorporate the non-work self into the expected workplace persona. Similarly, some people are able to easily compartmentalize or even eliminate their non-work personality. Assimilation, they say, can be a good thing, since a lack of conflict means employees can be more productive and harmonized with work and cultural demands. On the other hand, if there are unfair power dynamics in the organization, these folks may have little impetus to make changes to the status quo.
In cases where there is “misalignment,” that is, when someone can’t or doesn’t want to align their work and non-work identities, Ramarajan and Reid lay out three different strategies: compliance, resistance, and inversion.
Compliance is when someone merely puts up with uncomfortable personality demands for their job, without fully assimilating. “People who comply with pressures partially assent to the organization’s pressure to treat a nonwork identity in a particular way while discretely pursuing their personal preferences,” they write.
Resistance is when someone actively reveals their non-work identity at work. While this strategy may initially harm productivity, they write, in the long run, resistance can drive organizational change toward inclusion of non-dominant identities.
Finally, they continue, is inversion, in which people “can act in accordance with both the pressure and their preference.”
At the organizational level, different strategies may result in different trade-offs in productivity, harmony, acceptance, and power-dynamics. In the long run, complete assimilation of non-work identities is probably not possible or desirable. Companies that find ways to encourage the inclusion of non-dominant identities without quashing them into a sea of homogeneity will capitalize on the strength of diversity.
Are you one of those lucky folks who feel they can be their whole selves at work without tension or conflict? Then perhaps you have work to do, too.
Ramarajan and Reid write that the more comfortable people are with integrating their non-work identities with their work-identities, the less likely they are to notice power structures that could be holding others back. They continue, “The greater the misalignment, the more likely people are to acutely experience the power relationship as a constraint. These experiences affect the nonwork identity management strategies that people craft.”
Indeed, Ramarjan and Reid’s work should remind us that even if we feel like we can be ourselves at work, there may be others who don’t feel the same way. Can you identify someone at work who may feel like a round peg forced into a square hole? How might you push the diversity issue at your organization so they (and your company) can experience the benefits of inclusion?
