What if I was a nudist?

Why we say “bring your whole self to work”

Historically, workplaces have encouraged conformity. Being the same as everyone else was seen as a virtue. I briefly worked for IBM: a company that has been known as “Identical Blue Men” because of how much the staff were encouraged to conform, right down to the colour of their suits.

Today, we recognise that limiting people’s individuality is exclusionary. If a company encourages conformity, it can result in everything from women and other marginalised people feeling they have to “copy” the behaviour of the more privileged group to people hiding parts of their identity like their sexual orientation.

Being less inclusive results in a less diverse and less equitable workforce. You are likely to miss out on some great employees just because they’re women or they’re gay or they’re disabled, and conformity also robs you of the diversity of thought that comes from people feeling free and unrestrained in the workplace.

And if you don’t have diversity of thought on your team, that’s how you end up with racist soap dispensers.

So, with this knowledge we want people to feel safe to be themselves at work, at least in as much as it’s good for business and good for employee morale. And this is where the “whole self” question comes from.

What is someone’s “whole self”?

I think the term “whole self” came from intersectionality - the idea that someone can be marginalised in multiple ways, and just because your workplace has made an effort to include you in one way doesn’t mean that you feel included.

But it’s a very confusing term. How many of your team even know that’s what is meant by it? I think some people could read this question literally and think “can I actually bring all of my body into the office?”

But the biggest challenge with this term is that rarely do workplaces actually want a person’s whole self to come to work.

The prompt question I usuaally ask here is “what if I was a nudist?”

I think most of us agree that nudism (being comfortable wearing no clothes for daily activities) is a valid part of a person’s identity. But do we want people showing up to the office naked? To Zoom calls? To customer meetings? Probably not.

But requiring nudist staff to cover their bodies at work isn’t really allowing them to bring their whole self to work. So is it actually something you want at all?

Professionalism vs personal life

That might be a contrived example, but every workforce has people who do things in their personal life that you wouldn’t really want to happen in the office.

For example, you likely have people on your team who like to drink alcohol to excess, people who like to have sex, people who enjoy singing loud football chants, people who have strong opinions about which religions are right and wrong, and people who campaign for specific political parties.

All of these things are valid parts of a person’s identity – part of their “whole self” – but you don’t really want people doing them when they’re at work.

That’s because professional behaviour is still important. There are some standards you have to uphold because to ignore them would create a work environment that was actively hostile to other people trying to do their jobs.

Accidentally exclusionary

For this reason, you likely want people to bring some aspects of their self to work but not others. In other words, you actually don’t want them to bring their whole self to work.

But having a vague definition of what parts of a person’s “whole self” are and aren’t acceptable at work is exclusionary. Team members have to work out for themselves what is and isn’t acceptable, and then they have to try to answer the question about “bringing their whole self” in a way that makes sense to both them and you.

The consequence of this is that the stated aim doesn’t really come true.

Inclusion vs values

Before we get onto what we can say instead, I wanted to drop a little side note here about corporate values.

The concept of “whole self” comes from a desire to be inclusive, but I’ve seen more and more companies adding this and other inclusion measures to their values. For example, at least one company has this exact value stated on their website:

We bring our whole selves to work.

Corporate values are things that staff are tested against. They’re not inclusivity measures, they’re the things the company considers to be important.

If your company says one of its values is “we bring our whole selves to work”, it’s a bit like saying “if you don’t bring your whole self to work, you’re not doing your job properly”.

This is deeply problematic. Many people choose to keep aspects of their personal life private and away from the workplace. For example, it’s absolutely right to strive for an atmosphere where gay staff and happy to be out at work, but an atmosphere where gay staff feel they have to be out at work is actively hostile.

What to say instead

As with all of these kinds of wording challenges, the key question is “what do you actually want to change?”

If you know the answer to that question, you can word your staff survey question or your value appropriately.

For example, you might ask that question and come to the conclusion:

We want people not to be afraid to talk about their personal lives when they’re at work, even if something about their lives is unconventional or unexpected.

If that’s what you want, maybe your staff survey question would be:

Do you always feel safe talking about your personal life when you’re at work?

Or maybe you think it’s:

We want marginalised people not to have to hide their identities when they’re at work.

Then maybe you could ask:

Do you ever feel you have to hide things about yourself in order to be included or accepted at work?

Communication is hard

Communication – both internally and externally – is hard. Sometimes you hear a soundbite or something someone else is doing and you just copy & paste it into your workplace without thinking about the nuance or the consequences.

This is why it’s always important to ask why you’re doing a thing – and have a good answer to that question – before you do the thing.

Have you got a question you can’t answer? Need some help? That’s what I’m here for… let’s have a chat!