The office vs home personality battle

Whether you are an employee or an employer, the personalities that you work with can have a huge impact on the dynamic of the company, culture and working environment, so avoiding clashes of personality should be a top priority.

But how can you be sure that you are seeing everyone’s true personality? Are we all exactly the same at home as we are at work? Are you a clean freak at home, but your work area is a tip?

Are you a ‘talker’ at work, but a ‘listener’ at home?

There has been a lot of research into our work personalities, and it has been found that in general most of us make a conscious decision not to be our true selves at work because our work life places completely different demands on us than our home life does, so we decide to be our ‘professional’ selves whilst working. At home you probably feel that you can express yourself without being judged, but at work you may keep your innermost feelings to yourself for fear of judgement or ridicule. You may be loud and gregarious at home, but swearing in the office can land you in hot water.

Fitting in
So, do we change our natural personalities just to ‘fit in’? This could be true for lots of people who just want to be part of the team or ‘one of the guys’. We are probably all guilty of it, but does that make it right? If you have to really try hard to fit in then is this environment right for you in the first place? 

The wider importance of work vs home personalities is that being inauthentic is not only an exhausting act to have to continue day after day, but it can cause disconnect, stress and anxiety. Not being yourself, having to falsely adopt different values and behave at odds to your natural personality encourages fake interactions and is not conducive to good mental health in the long term.

So how can you bring ‘work you’ more in line with ‘home you’? 
The importance is to find an environment to work in that is as close to your natural personality as possible. That was you are not having to become someone else in the workplace and your colleagues can get to know the real you.

As an employer, interviews are fast becoming more about the person as much as it is about their ability to do the job, because employers are recognising more and more that they need a team of like minded individuals who are going to get on. Culture has a massive impact on the productivity of a team, so the people that make up that culture should be well considered. There are a number of personality tests such as ‘16 Personalities’ (https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test) that can provide useful tools at interview and are being used more and more to provide a general ‘types’ evaluation and some intel on what personality types will get on with others. This doesn’t however override a good old get to know you chat with a potential employee to uncover their natural state and encourage them to bring that to the workplace.