To think employers wanting us to bring our whole selves to work is actually a very sinister idea?

[ScreamingBeans]

No. I don't want to bring my whole self to work and I don't want my colleagues to either.

The man who worked at the NSPCC who brought his whole self to work by wearing his leather fetish gear and masturbating in the toilet and then uploading it to a website, should have left that part of himself at home. I hope that any colleagues of mine who share his habits will not accept my employer's invitation to bring their whole selves to work, I want them to leave that bit of themselves firmly behind their own front doors.

The sinister bit is that if you want people to bring their whole selves to work, then that means you need to employ people who think and act in a way that you as an employer find conducive. So you won't employ anyone who disagrees with you politically, religiously or philosophically, because their opinions won't align with your values. And you will then be justified in doing something which trade unionists fought tooth and nail to make illegal - blacklist workers who don't share your politics and viewpoint.

I don't care what people do or believe outside work as long as they do the bloody job competently and professionally in work and keep their unacceptable beliefs or behaviour to themselves. I don't want interviews and other employment processes to start becoming tools to weed out people with the wrong political views - now called "values" - instead of the tools to find the best person for the job regardless of their sex, race, religion, disability status, political beliefs etc.

Employers are beginning to take back the rights they used to have, to blacklist workers with unacceptable political or ideological views and it's being done under the guise of employing the sort of people who have "our values" IE the same opinions as the employer.

Shouldn't trades unionists be alarmed about this?

I might adopt this.

I've read the thread but am still not clear. Is it an official policy that companies adopted? Or a social media movement? Is this only in the tech sector or what? Where did the phrase originate? I've never heard the phrase but don't work in that corporate world. I always understood employers are not allowed ask personal questions to employees or prospective employees, I thought there was a legal data protection around this. Clearly I haven't a clue!

Hahahahaha I am definitely going to steal that.

Google and social media mostly. It’s perfectly legal and acceptable to do searches on applicants. And it’s not his personal policy, it’s unwritten company policy that they don’t want any trouble makers.

@Archeron depending on what info is used to determine who is a "trouble maker" it really isn't ok or legal to do that

And yet people everywhere do it on a regular basis. You can legislate all you want, people are still going to give themselves an easy life and not hire someone who might be a problem. All that happens is they don’t tell the truth about why they rejected the application.

I’m disabled and I can tell you that I don’t get interviews if I disclose my disability on the application form. It’s not fair or legal, but employers think “we don’t want to have to make reasonable adjustments, we’ll just hire someone who isn’t disabled and won’t ask for adjustments”. And when I applied to work in an office full of men they didn’t say they rejected me for being female, but I’m sure it was a lot easier for them to hire another man than to hire me and have to watch their mouths all the time. I’ve also been turned down for jobs because of my accent, and they told me that verbally but were smart enough not to put it in writing when they rejected me.

Do you really think that legislation stops people discriminating? It just stops them being honest about it.

Missing the point here but have you watched the Apple TV series Severed? It's about your work self having no knowledge of your home self and vice versa. I found the idea fascinating, if sinister.

It's a very common theme within lots of large companies, I think 'policy' is pushing it.

The general idea was the it's stressful to pretend you are something you are not so people work better if they can be authentic.

It is good on the surface - parents can say why they can't work late, people with depression don't have to pretend they had a week off with the flu, introverts don't need to pretend to be extroverts, etc.

But its become an excuse for bad behaviour and poor working practices - Jim's rude because he's going through a break up, Sarah's late for every meeting because shes dyspraxic, Alex cannot be pulled up on sloppy work because his hamsters just died, etc.

And then there's more insidious stuff, the TQ+ end of the LGB is the most obvious in my workplace. No one needs to know that Jane is a furry or see photos of the drag act that that John does at weekends (and is clearly getting off on telling me about) yet if we complain we're bigots, we're asking people to pretend to be something they're not.

I love my job, I love my job,.....

You've conflated so many issues in your OP I'm not sure what your argument actually is.

Ok wow I'm a bit taken aback

we had the " bring your whole self to work speech from our head teacher last year and I found it to be so moving and refreshing and wonderful it made me smile all day

She phrased it along the lines of Im black and wear my silk headscarf in the morning and I now feel confident and proud of my hair and culture to walk around the school unapologetically wearing it and went on to say if you are gay and out , have a disability etc there should be no shame in the workplace talk about your same sex partner / kids

I did not interpret it in a sinister way at all , far from it

For me at the end of my career planing on retiring next year i reflected on how 30 years ago I was ashamed and secretive and constantly had to be careful of my conversations in the staff room in case i accidentally outed myself to an openly homophonic staff room ....and here I was 30 years later sat in whole staff meeting being told to be out and proud and knowing 💯 confidentially that not one person in the room had a problem with me talking bout my wife or kids

For me it was not sinister but very emotional happy staff meeting

pimplebum
That's how it started.

Instead of people being comfortable to acknowledge their same sex partner in the way heterosexual people mention their partner, which improves the culture at work, it's become very individualistic in places and low boundaries have become normalised.
What it's become is very me-me-me, where people feel happy to offload their home/relationship/health issues around the workplace, or bring their political views into work, and any challenge to this lack of boundaries leads some people to take it very personally.

Spot on!
It just creates a very high emotional labour for colleagues who really should be just getting on with their job.

Love this! 😂😂😂

At our place it just seems to mean you aren't obliged to wear smart business clothes.

Other than that, it has no meaning. It's just part of a cynical corporate culture where employers pretend to care. We also have a big emphasis on 'wellness'.

Are you me!?
I agree wholeheartedly.
Why is corporate culture trying to disconnect us from proprietary?

Surely common sense can prevail here:
Tolerance, freedom to be openly gay/trans if that’s what you desire, understanding of issues around menopause and medical issues. Yes.
Coming to work in unsuitable clothing, being rude to colleagues and clients, racism, eating like a pig at your desk. No.
I’m a version of myself at work. I usually start off quiet and then get more ‘myself’ as I build relationships with others. I have worked with people who bring too many problems in and it gets messy, and others who are almost too reserved so it’s a bit awkward.
I don’t care if someone is he/she/they as long as they’re a pleasant person to work alongside.

😂
I'm going to use that

For avoidance of doubt, I think the original intent of this is good - people should be able to talk about their home life, culture, religion etc.. without fear of prejudice or judgement.

But the phrase is irritatingly twee, so ripe for pisstaking.

I am a good employee but a terrible corporate citizen.

This is so true.

At my (relatively new) workplace, I know so much detail about the ins and outs of my colleagues’ private lives that I had started think it was unfair of me not to have shared the same volume of information about myself! The problem is that I lack the ability to get my work done whilst treating my colleagues like family members or therapists.

Not blowing my own trumpet but for my own (traumatic) reasons, I am a good counsellor and have fully had to learn to adopt a more boundaried / less empathetic persona because it becomes awkward when I know that a colleague has, for example, an abusive husband, loads of debt, a dying parent and no sex life and I have to follow up with them about a project that they should have finished.

If you know too much about people’s personal lives it can be held against you when you ask legitimate questions about work related stuff because they can accuse you of being unsympathetic to the issue in their personal lives.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the compartmentalising of work and home and think on balance it’s best to separate worlds.

I find myself idly wondering what (if any) the "penalties" would be for inventing a totally fictional version of your whole self to "bring to work" ?

For example, suppose I said I love to run at weekends and invent some guff about fresh air, exercise, mental health. And then a colleague approaches me and says "You said you go running every weekend in <x> park. But I do and have never seen you ...." and you reply "Oh, I wasn't serious. Just made something up to keep HR happy ...."

I wonder, because I know for a fact on the occasions I have been dragooned into such situations, there is no way everyone is telling the truth.

Of course I guess there could be sanctions for telling whoppers about your personal life at work. Which would be an interesting development seeing as there are no sanctions for telling whoppers about your work at work. (Or so I deduce from public life 2023).

@SerendipityJane please do this and report back!

I’m on annual leave at the mo’ but have a few resolutions for when I go back, which involve a strong defence of neutrality.

I think the most boring colleagues are actually on to something with their work MOs.

It's part of a trend in the workplace that's afaic an insidious american import. Like, installing a bar in the office for friday drinks ... 'amazing' think the younger employees. To me it's a cynical ploy which says - you'll live and breathe this place. All the 180 degree HR questions like 'how have you grown in the last year' - what is this? Therapy? F**k off. This is a workplace where employees have skills which you pay for. It's a replacement for adequate overtime pay...and pay in general

@SerendipityJane please do this and report back!

Ah, I'm too old, ugly and clearly world weary to be bothered with. The creeping cloak of age slowly making me less visible by the birthday.

It's the kids that have to be captured with this nonsense. Before they catch on what a crock it is.

You have to remember that over 80% of people I've worked with genuinely thought you had to enter your real mothers maiden name (or whatever) when asked on a website....

Like, installing a bar in the office for Friday drinks ...

I worked for a German firm in Frankfurt that had a well stocked wine chiller with a selection of beers and a gym on the first floor. Annoyingly I never seemed to go on on a Friday when a free masseur was available. A different take on civilisation.

In the UK, alcohol and work really should be separated by law. They never mix well ...

I really struggle with the over sharing some of my younger colleagues think is appropriate in a shared office space. My work and home life are very separate and I would like to keep them that way!