While many of us perhaps modify our behaviors somewhat depending on the company we’re keeping, research from Cornell finds that Black employees particularly benefit from what the researchers refer to as “racial codeswitching”, which is when behaviors are adjusted to maximize the comfort of others.
The study found that when Black employees engage in racial codeswitching they tend to be viewed as more professional by both Black and white colleagues than those who don’t.
“Our findings suggest that organizations would really benefit from examining how they may inadvertently reward codeswitching behaviors,” the researchers say. “Companies often claim that they want employees to ‘bring their whole selves to work,’ without realizing that they are unintentionally penalizing Black employees who do not fit into the culture.”
What professionalism looks like
As a result, the researchers urge employers to consider expanding or redefining what they believe constitutes professionalism so that it includes a wider range of cultural norms and values.
“They can do this by increasing representation of nonwhite employees in leadership levels, questioning the unspoken cultural norms that exist in their organization, and reducing monitoring behaviors that scrutinize the appearance and behaviors of marginalized employees,” they explain.
The researchers conducted a couple of experiments in which a Black lawyer either engages in codeswitching in the workplace or does not. In the first experiment, volunteers were asked to imagine themselves as a new hire in a large city law firm where they are played a voicemail from a coworker called either Lamar Matthew Jackson or La’Keisha Renee Jackson. In the message, advice is shared on the various unspoken ways one can succeed at the firm.
To imitate codeswitching, the researchers varied the sound of the voices in the message, as well as the verbal description of their preferred name choice, hairstyle, and style of speech in order to demonstrate an overall profile of a coworker who either engaged in codeswitching or did not.
More professional
The results reveal that both Black and white volunteers viewed the coworker who was engaging in codeswitching as more professional than their peer who was not.
“Our study demonstrates one of many dilemmas that Black employees face in their everyday work experiences: whether codeswitching or not will elicit perceptions of professionalism,” the authors say. “Although all employees may behave more professionally at work compared to more casual settings, individuals from stigmatized racial groups may feel a disproportionate pressure to conceal significant cultural aspects of themselves to minimize stereotyping ascribed to their social identities.”
As a result of the initial findings, the researchers hypothesized that the volunteers were perhaps focusing excessively on the sound of the voice in the message and less on any codeswitching behaviors outlined in the voicemail. They addressed this in a second experiment in which the recorded messages were transcribed into a written email.
The results of the second experiment revealed that Black men and women tended to perceive non-codeswitching colleagues as more professional than white men, but as before, both Black and white volunteers found codeswitching employees more professional.
“Our findings suggest that racial codeswitching is a necessary behavior for Black employees to be perceived as professionals,” the researchers conclude. “Engaging racial codeswitching might limit how Black people are ‘allowed’ to behave at work if they desire to maintain these perceptions. Further, it places a burden on Black employees to chronically monitor their appearance, speech and behaviors while at work, possibly contributing to burnout and fatigue.”
