Privacy in the Workplace

Be mindful of the personal information shared with managers and colleagues

Welcome to another issue of Secrets of Privacy where we discuss personal privacy related topics and provide practical tips to immediately boost your personal privacy.

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It’s trendy for large employers to tell their employees to embrace “vulnerability” in the workplace. Corporate leadership trainings usually dedicate an entire session, if not day on the topic (we’ve sat through at least two).

Oprah is firmly in the pro-vulnerability game (source). Some even call showing vulnerability a “super power”! (source) The argument boils down to showing vulnerability makes you more authentic and relatable, both as a leader and a colleague.

These claims are odd since throughout human history, vulnerability has been a primary cause of death and weakness. Picture the defenseless town in the path of a maundering horde. Or an East German living in perpetual fear of the Stasi finding some excuse to throw him in prison. Or an elderly woman walking down the streets of Chicago by herself at night. We all know vulnerability is generally bad and something we should actively minimize.

So why do employers spend money and time trying to convince you that vulnerability is good?

To be blunt, vulnerable people are easier to control, manipulate and even use. They’re more compliant. They’re more reliant on the authority figure. And they’re less likely to go against the narrative and conventional wisdom.

In the context of employer vs employee, showing vulnerability shifts power to your employer. One of the top ways to make yourself vulnerable is revealing too much about your personal life.

This is the reason for the push behind “bringing your authentic self to work”.

In other words, be yourself and reveal as much about your personal life as possible to your manager and colleagues. This sounds nice in theory, but only in a high trust situation. Unfortunately that is generally not the case in corporate culture. The real intent is to obtain information that your employer can use to their advantage and by definition, to your disadvantage. Revealing too much information can also cause jealously, both from colleagues and even your manager.

Employers having access to personal details about employees can, and often does, lead to use of that information that’s not in the best interest of the employee. Here are some examples of how personal information can be misused in the workplace: