Even if an organisation has policies supporting inclusivity, employees who disclose their diverse sexual and gender identities can still face social and professional penalties. In her recently published dissertation, Chenhao Zhou shows how seemingly neutral norms about professionalism shape how we are perceived at work, how employees who deviate from those norms are evaluated, and how inclusion and cooperation can be sustained in the workplace.
Implicit standards in the workplace
What are the standards of professionalism in the workplace? Many of us assume that professionalism is an objective set of characteristics like skill and good judgment, politeness and an ability to collaborate, derived from a person’s work experience and qualifications. But as Chenhao notes, ‘“Professionalism” is not as neutral as we assume.’ Surprisingly, standards of professionalism have more to do with ideas of gender and sexuality than previously supposed because, ‘the workplace norm is still masculine heterosexual.’
Chenhao’s research has found that if an employee’s expression of their gender or sexuality does not align with this unspoken standard, they can face professional penalties. She argues that this is the result of heteroprofessionalism – the tacit belief that professionalism is tied to heterosexuality. ‘Heteroprofessionalism,’ Chenhao says, ‘explains why LGBTQ+ employees can experience barriers at different levels of a workplace, even if there are inclusion policies to protect them. They are implicitly excluded.’
The double-edged sword of disclosure
If they are vulnerable to facing penalties, how should LGBTQ+ employees approach the matter of disclosing their sexual identity at work? One of Chenhao’s findings is that coming out at the workplace can be a double-edged sword, having positive or negative outcomes depending on the heteronormative beliefs of one’s colleagues.
Employees who are “out” in the workplace are more likely to be perceived as less professional. Chenhao has found that individuals who strongly believe in the value of heteronormativity tend to find sexuality-and-gender-diverse colleagues less professional than heterosexual colleagues, and tend to rate gay colleagues who disclose their sexual orientation as less professional than those who conceal it. This has a negative effect on the running of an organisation because individuals tend not to cooperate with those who they perceive as unprofessional.
Conversely, employees who disclose their sexual identity are also seen as more moral and sociable – but only amongst those colleagues who hold low-level heteronormative beliefs. Interestingly, this is associated with higher levels of informal workplace cooperation, such as spending time socially outside of work hours. Chenhao has also found that if an employee only selectively comes out to individual colleagues, they are more likely to avoid professional penalties compared to those who fully disclose their sexual orientation. In other words, concealment or selective disclosure may reduce the professional cost associated with full disclosure of one’s sexual identity.
“Concealment reinforces heteroprofessionalism and perpetuates the vicious cycle of LBGTQ+ identity suppression.”
Towards inclusive workplaces
Chenhao suggests that creating more inclusive workplaces can facilitate increased sustainable cooperation because when ‘people can cooperate across differences in more inclusive environments, they don’t need to constantly manage or suppress the important parts of their identities.’
Inclusion facilitates a virtuous cycle: if employees are freer to be themselves, they may have better relationships with their colleagues, which leads to greater cooperation, and this is potentially what makes the organisation more resilient to external shocks (like state-level restrictions on DEI policies). Real inclusion, Chenhao says, means much more than ‘simply having policies on paper.’ It starts with organisations ‘questioning what they mean when they say “professional”.’
You can learn more about Chenhao's dissertation here.
