Recently, warfare expert P. W. Singer appeared on several shows (NPR’s Fresh Air, The Daily Show) to talk about his new book Wired for War.  While not necessarily the central focus of the book, one point he made caught my attention for its relation to virtual teams.  Singer talked about a drone pilot who engages in war, but from afar – drone pilots are often halfway around the world from the battle zones in which they fight.  Singer recalls one pilot who spoke of how psychologically confusing it is to be at war in Iraq (virtually) all day, and then to get in his car and within an hour be sitting at the dinner table with his family.

Thinking about this experience, I realized that virtual collaboration and virtual work has created a new kind of work-life challenge.  Being immersed in one context (or several) during the work day, then in a drastically different context at the end of the work day might have a strong impact on workers.  Academics have started to consider the effects of the emotional labor involved in many virtual situations, but virtual collaboration technology is new enough that we have had little time to explore the psychological and emotional effects of moving between contexts and identitites within a work day.  These multiple identities are not totally different from the roles that are considered in work-life balance issues.  Perhaps we can adapt understanding from that area to begin managing the multiple identities of virtual workers.

In this post I will discuss:

1. The challenge that exists when workers have multiple identities.
2. Three ways that multiple identities can lead to beneficial outcomes.
3. Some ideas for how managers can influence those beneficial outcomes.

The challenge of multiple identities

We know that people who work in a virtual context often develop a strong identity within that context.  In fact, organizations encourage meaningful identity in order to strengthen commitment and productivity.  While this seems harmless enough, we have failed to recognize that moving from one context and identity to another may take a toll on employees.

Take, for example, employees of Indian call centers who are asked to adopt a completely different identity at work in order to “fit in” with the mostly American customers they help by phone.  These workers are trained to adopt an American-sounding accent, and learn to speak in the pace and cadence of American English.  In addition, many workers find it necessary to know something about US current events in order to make convincing small talk with customers.  They are even asked to adopt an alias – an American-sounding name – to use when customers phone.  Between the effort put in for speech training and the adoption of an alias, the result is that many of these call center employees have a work identity that is not the same as their non-work identity (see abstract, full research paper on this issue).

I believe that, in the era of virtual work, multiple identities will become the modern analog of people playing multiple roles in their lives. The idea of balancing multiple roles gained attention in the US as women entered the workforce in large numbers.  This phenomenon meant that home roles and work roles were no longer neatly divided up between a husband and a wife.  Today, most American workers have roles both at home and at work.  Technology is creating the next wave of this phenomenon, in which many virtual workers have not only several roles, but even several identities between home and work.

Finding harmony among multiple identities

How then can we manage multiple identities?  Perhaps research previously applied to multiple roles can help.  In recent years, the work-life research perspective has shifted.  Previously, models assumed that work and personal life were necessarily at odds with one another.  Because of this, suggestions for dealing with multiple roles had to do with trying to balance work and personal life.

More recently, with the positive organizational behavior movement, this thinking has shifted.  Models of multiple roles no longer assume that work and home are “enemies”.  The focus is now on integrating work life and personal life, in the sense of accepting that both are parts of the individual.  Newer evidence shows that this “role accumulation” can have positive outcomes, rather than necessarily causing stress.  In a 2006 Academy of Management Review article*, Greenhaus and Powell outline three ways this can occur.  We can apply their explanation to multiple identities as well.

1. Additive effects on well-being

First, the authors cite evidence that when people are satisfied with their home and work roles, the positive effects on their well-being are compounded.  Applied to identities, this would mean that workers who have a work identity (or multiple work identities) and a home identity might be happy and productive if they are satisfied with those identities.

Achieving satisfaction with multiple identities is probably idiosyncratic for each of us, but there are ways that managers can help team members achieve satisfaction with multiple identities.  For example, in a previous post, Becky points out that allowing people autonomy (such as choosing their avatar’s appearance) in virtual identities can go a long way toward satisfaction.  In another post, Surinder points out that removing ambiguity and instilling a sense of ownership create team identity in virtual teams, which helps the team function more effectively.  This should also have a positive domino effect on a team member’s individual identity related to the virtual world.  Team leaders have the opportunity to positively impact a team member’s work identity to bolster overall satisfaction.

2. Diversification for hard times

The second effect is a lot like diversifying your portfolio – the authors say that playing multiple roles can be useful when one’s role is especially stressful or difficult temporarily.  In other words, if a person has just work, and work becomes very stressful, his whole world is stressful.  But if he had work and several outside activities and close ties to family members, when work becomes stressful there are still aspects of life that feel calm and stable.  This seems applicable to multiple identities as well – when one work identity becomes temporarily stressful, perhaps having other identities can lessen the impact.  In this way, having multiple identities is a blessing during hard times.

This effect provides another tool for leaders to help team members with multiple identities.  Without prying, stay in touch with how your team members are doing.  Show interest not only in the work context and identity that you share with them, but also feel out how they are faring in their other contexts.  When team members struggle in one context, do what you can to support them in your team’s context. This is where building social relationships can help. 

3. Positive spillover

The third effect the authors discuss is a sort of positive spill from one role to another.  They explain that social capital, and even social skills, generated by one role can be invested in other roles.  For example, learning patience as a parent can make a person more patient with a difficult co-worker.  Without the parental role this patience at work might never have been developed.  As long as a person’s multiple identities are integrated (not feeling forced), it seems likely that this effect could occur for identities as well as for roles.

This is another area where leaders can make a difference.  For example, you might periodically remind team members of the skills they have learned or enhanced as a result of your team project.  Explore with team members whether aspects of those skills (such as problem solving) are useful to them in other aspects of life.  Similarly, you might explore skills your team members use in other contexts that they haven’t yet utilized in your team’s context.

Conclusion

We don’t know much about the impact of multiple identities on workers.  Virtual collaboration technology has created a whole new set of possibilities.  We know that virtual team members are increasingly experiencing not only various roles, but various identities, and the effects of this new phenomenon need to be studied.

I believe that previous work in multiple roles and work-life integration provide a model for dealing with multiple identities in the virtual age.  I also believe this model demonstrates that if employers and employees take a positive approach to integrating multiple identities, there is potential for very positive outcomes.

*Footnote:  Sometimes the academic journal articles we cite are hard to find without a membership to the association or to a college/university library.  Academy of Management Review is one of those.  If you have access through a library, I recommend searching for the article on scholar.google.com.