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?

My workplace has hired a ‘Mental Health Lead’. The first thing this person did when they got the role was to send a huge survey out to all staff to measure areas of discontentment.

The response to the data was (unsurprisingly) handled so unprofessionally.’ One example of this is that the boss managed to identify who had written certain things and singled these people out in front of their whole department, which ultimately had a worse impact on their mental health than anything else!

The only things that I want from my employer for optimum mental health is:

•Autonomy to get on with the job they’ve employed me to do, within the bounds of my job description.

•More fucking money.

That will do nicely thank you very much.
It really is that simple.

I don’t even know whether I trust the mental health lead. She gossips to various long-standing staff and seems to be a personified box-tick for the organisation to allow them to wash their hands of the negative impact of the unreasonable expectations that they have on their employees.

I don’t need: cake in the staff room, a staff party, discount codes, public recognition, praise, jollies, counselling, to know anyone’s door is always open or positive affirmations in the staff toilets in order to be mentally stable and happy.

It’s infantilising if nothing else and a waste of money.

Really interesting discussion

I suppose what it shows is that anything that starts out good (bring your whole self to work, don't feel you have to hide your homosexuality/ religion/ family problems) inevitably turns to shit when employers adopt it because they never adopt it for good reasons.

Without wishing to be cynical of course.

I don't think that an employer doesn't adopt an approach of reasonable openness (eg not having to hide sexuality, caring responsibilities, religious beliefs) for good reasons. It probably is a good reason to have a healthy team culture where people don't feel they have to lie about their partner or deny that they've done something faith based at the weekend.
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The problem is that some people, particularly a certain wing of EDI staff, have collided with a growing sense of self-obsession. It has created a sense of obligation on other people to entertain increasingly lower boundaries.

Even before the push to bring your whole self to work there was always colleagues who thought the office needed to hear about every medical ailment, or would awkwardly bring politics up. The difference now is that even people's silence of reluctance to engage in those conversations gets taken as a personal criticism of them as an individual. Some people take other having boundaries very personally.

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

I agree essentially with this. But I also think that one can be authentic without bringing one's whole self to work.

My workplace (American, by the way) I think strikes a pretty decent balance. It's a supportive and inclusive environment and personal privacy is also respected. The part of myself I bring to work is authentic, but it is not my whole self.

Also, for what it's worth, no one talks about politics, ever. That is something everyone keeps private.

The are you happy at work surveys are never a true reflection of the work place as the company I worked for everyone lied on it for fear as being found out if anything deviated from the company mantra. The Mh care stuff went out the window everytime redundancies were in the offing. Details of peoples meetings were leaked even down to reactions to being told it was p45 time.

This.

I bring my fake self to work: she’s charming but firm, enthusiastic and interested but gets her head down to get to the work done, loves teamwork AND working alone! Etc.

My real self couldn’t care less and wants to be doing literally anything else, and I resent the expectation I’ll bring my whole self. No. You pay me for 7/24 hours, three days a week, you don’t own me.

I prefer to segregate the two.

Exactly, do a decent job get paid end of.

The "bring your whole self to work" doesn't mean behave inappropriate or breach HR Policy. It doesn't mean indecently expose yourself, dress inappropriately in your man-kini, wear your gimp-mask to work day or whatever.

Honestly, what's so difficult to understand. We have 12,000 staff (large Govt employer), we are diverse and there are loads of openly LGBT+ / religious / racially diverse etc etc, staff - no once has there been an incident that was as a consequence of Bring your whole self to work day. People get on with their jobs.

if someone was going to act inappropriate like you describe in your OP @ScreamingBeans they wouldn't need to use it as an excuse or reason, they would do it anyway. Fact is, that person sounds sick in the head, god alone knows how they were employed in the first place.

The other thing I'd say is that it's an invitation not a mandate.

Bringing your whole self to work is a choice, it's a way of signalling that we're all different and that diversity is a healthy aspect of functioning organisations for example working in project teams to avoid group think.

Staff won't be marched in front of HR for being accused of not being themselves, it isn't a dictatorship. They're getting on and doing their job.

staff aren't forced to declare their pronouns - lots of people choose to, great. I and others choose not to, also great.

I don’t find it sinister but it is bullshit nonsense. I don’t want to bring my authentic self to work, I want to bring my professional self. I don’t know why you’d want me to bring my authentic self or what there is to be gained by me doing so?

Good grief, no I don’t want John from accounts to bring his whole self to work, and I only want to bring the bit of myself that is good at doing my job, unless the organisation decides to pay for my whole self and wants to give me money for spending too much time doom scrolling on Mumsnet, chatting shit about crocheting, and sending Petro Pascal memes to my sister. I get paid to do my fucking job so I can go home and be my whole self minus the work bit of me. So if you want to bring your whole self to work and that involves being a Furry or preferring to dress as Batman would that be ok?

It's a terrible idea for all the reasons that everyone has said here. I think there is a clear division between people who think that things being more personal are kinder, and those who think things being more formal and impersonal are less pressured, safer, and less demanding. I think the first set of people are confused about work and often very young; either that or they are deliberately exploitative in HR and senior management.

What I mean by this, is that traditionally you were treated in a certain way by people who liked you and loved you, and in a more formal way by those who you worked with. So friends and family knew you well, accepted you, shared a lot of personal stuff, and except in toxic situations it was ok because although you might have a row, you wouldn't be cast out. Or if a relationship did end, it would be sad, but it would be fair because it had been based on love and esteem that did not exist any more.

Work places don't love you and don't accept you as you are. You are there to make them money. You can't make them love you, or become secure, by everyone suddenly behaving socially like they do with their family and friends. If you are scared or nervous that they are treating you in this cold and formal way because it shows that the relationship is on a very transactional footing, such that you work there as long as it is of value you to them - good. You ought to be on edge. This is the reality.

This is why your workplace should pay you enough to save for a rainy day, and give you enough time not working to be your actual self that you are happy in general. They don't, but they should.

Behaving like work is your friends is annoying, yes, and a waste of time, yes, and too demanding of you personally, yes. But it's also profoundly dishonest and allows work to fudge the boundaries so that they can renege on their real responsibilities to you by making implicit promises of love and security that they can never keep.

Trade unions are run by leftists. They're very happy for capitalists and the state to combine forces to enforce liberal/leftist political ideologies. I don't think most of them even notice that's what they're doing. It might make some of them feel uncomfortable if they did.

My true self isn't very nice.
I am not sure HR would want me telling someone that their issues are their own doing and they need to pull themselves together and stop being so bloody dramatic!

So succinctly put!
If everyone could get with this reality, there would be far fewer work place martyrs and workaholics.

The ideal is that people can be themselves at work. That they can be honest "I'm leaving this meeting now to collect my daughter from the childminder", not feeling like you have to lie and say you have another meeting. Not feeling like you can't talk about your hobbies and holidays as people will take the piss. Where you don't have to be some kind of work robot and it is accepted that everyone has a life outside work.

If on the other hand it means "access all areas," that there is no downtime as you can be contacted at all hours, there is no split between work and the rest of your life, then no thanks.

"You are there to make them money"

This might blow your mind but actually there are a lot of jobs where that is not the main focus, and I don't like roles where that is the only or main focus.

Or what about employers that say "we're a family"? I also find that very sinister.

My friend's law firm uses the "bring yourself to work" stuff to record cringy videos of the partners where they tell all the junior staff and secretaries about their lives. They boast about their hobbies and amazing holidays, all recorded from their amazing book-lined studies or big extended kitchens. It's beyond crass!

I work with young people in a large public sector organisation and we are very much encouraged NOT to ‘bring ourselves’ to work. We are there to do a professional job, hold strong professional boundaries and not bleat on about our own lives or beliefs or bring them into any type of work equation.

We have avoided thus far being captured by this bollocks and I really hope it continues.

Yes, omg the family thing! I have worked in schools like this where teachers are supposed to be "part of the school community" - in practice that meant giving up your weekends for free watching your students' matches and stuff like that. Socialising with drinks after work.

No thanks.

I used to do all that in the mistaken notion it would help me be liked or be promoted. It's taken me years to realise that my job is 8.30-4.30pm, turn up, teach my subject, safeguard the kids. That is it.

I don't need to be my male colleagues' agony aunt (I'm the only woman in my dept, very common for my subject). I don't need to give up hours of unpaid time outside school hours on extra curricular support. I don't need to go to work socials, including Christmas parties and leavers' speeches (aargh leavers speeches - worthy of their own thread). I feel just so liberated.

Far from my whole self, my employer gets a tiny, curated sliver of myself and I'm so much happier for it (and surprisingly my work is valued more now).

In most normal workplaces people have always talked about their hobbies and holidays at work if they wanted to, and everyone has always known that colleagues have lives outside of work. Saying you need to leave a meeting to collect a child from a minder is fine if it's the time you're due to leave work anyway. But then that always has been fine. If it's 3pm and you're actually supposed to be at work until 5.30 then it's not fine. The only reason employers put up with that kind of thing right now is there are staff shortages everywhere.

That's not 'being yourself' anyway. By 'being yourself' they mean being very visibly a member of one of the currently designated Victim groups, like an ethnic, religious or sexual minority, or at least a woke activist on their behalf. This is good for corporate PR and gets them corporate social responsibility points from government, 'charities' and multinational organizations.

That's not 'being yourself' anyway. By 'being yourself' they mean being very visibly a member of one of the currently designated Victim groups, like an ethnic, religious or sexual minority, or at least a woke activist on their behalf. This is good for corporate PR and gets them corporate social responsibility points from government, 'charities' and multinational organizations.

What a remarkably self-revealing post. Hang it up in the Louvre.

Who are all these employers who are apparently asking for these things? I’ve never had this at work.

Job-related posts on MN are so weird. They hardly ever represent anything I’ve seen in real life.

Oh you can definitely bring your whole self to work. But then you knew that.