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Drawing on interviews with two types of essential workers – wound clinicians and care workers – the chapter examines stigma management in dirty care work through the lens of emotion management. The study combines two dimensions of dirty work: physical taint in relation to bodywork and social taint linked to working in close proximity to socially stigmatized clients. Hence, stigma management extends to dealing with the physically and socially dirty features of essential care work. In addition, the authors’ assessment of social stigma includes how essential care workers also sought to alleviate the social stigma encountered by their clients. In so doing, the authors extend the literature on dirty work to identify how emotion management skills are central to the stigma management strategies of the essential care workers in this study. The authors demonstrate how both groups deal with their stigma by emphasizing the emotion management skills in ‘doing’ dirty work and in the ‘purpose’ of this work, which includes acknowledging how the authors attempt to address the social taint encountered by their clients. Additionally, by comparing two occupations with different contexts and conditions of work, the authors show how complex emotion management skills are gendered in care work to expand the understanding of gender and stigma management. Furthermore, these emotion management skills emanate from the deep relational work with clients rather than through occupational communities. The authors argue that by focussing on emotion management, the hidden skills of dirty work in gendered care work are illuminated and contribute to contemporary debates about whether stigma can be overcome.

In this chapter, we introduce the topic of essentiality of work, exploring its implications for workers, labour markets, and public policy. The essentiality of work often corresponds in a dialectical way with the precarity of work, raising pressing questions about how societies value and, more pertinently, devalue various types of labour, thereby influencing life chances and societal integration. What we see in the contributions to this volume and the wider evidence is that essential work is typically performed by workers who are treated as expendable, or inessential. We proceed to outline the various contributions from the studies compiled in this volume. These present diverse perspectives on ‘essentiality’ and the experiences of essential workers. Offering a range of new empirical insights, the volume underlines the vitality and lasting relevance of essentiality – both as a concept and in the experience of workers – beyond the pandemic.

Based on qualitative data from a large study exploring Muslim experiences in the workplace, this chapter explains how Muslim dress standards inform identity and are influenced by US cultural ideals about self-presentation and perceived anti-Muslim hostility. Theoretical sampling was used to find 25 men and 59 women, 32 of whom are veiled. These individuals worked at major corporations as numerical minorities or held professions where they encountered non-Muslims regularly. Informed by theories of orientalism and social identity, findings examine hegemonic representations of organizational power and describe how men could employ masculine practices to navigate anti-Muslim discourse and foster a sense of belonging at work. Within immigrant-centered workplaces, women face cultural backlash for appropriating Western styles deemed immodest. While working outside their community, women who wore hijabs emphasized their femininity through softer colors, makeup, or “unpinning” their veil to offset the visceral reaction to their hijab. Thus, adapting to workplace dress expectations is structured by intersections of gender, religion, and workplace location. This chapter illustrates how Muslim dress strategies indirectly reflect how Western standards of dress, behavior, and self-expression determine qualifications and approachability within workplace structures, marginalizing Muslims and reproducing racial and gender hierarchies.

Employability skills training programmes are an effective means for reducing unemployment rates. Such programmes also have the potential to improve the general well-being (e.g. self-efficacy) of disadvantaged individuals, however, reliable longitudinal evaluations of the psychological benefits of such programmes are limited. The present study evaluated the impact of an employability programme offered to disadvantaged adults in North-West England on self-efficacy. Additionally, the study aimed to identify risk factors for programme disengagement to identify at-risk groups that require further support.

Secondary longitudinal data pertaining to the background characteristics, programme engagement and self-efficacy scores (repeatedly measured on a monthly basis) of 308 programme users were analysed.

Results demonstrated that employability programme engagement significantly increased self-efficacy scores. Additionally, the findings suggested that individuals with mental health and learning difficulties were more likely to disengage from the programme. The findings demonstrate that employability programmes can have a positive impact on the well-being of individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, however, prolonged engagement is needed for which some individuals require further support with.

The present study analysed longitudinal data from a diverse sample of disadvantaged individuals to reliably evaluate psychological outcomes from employability training programmes.

Although sexual identity disclosure in the workplace can be related to heightened adversity for lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) employees, disclosure can also serve as an avenue for LGB employees to attain additional resources. Much of the work done in today’s organizations is done in team-based structures, making it likely that LGB individuals disclose to members of their work teams. However, very limited prior research has examined the associations of sexual identity disclosure within work team experiences. This paper aims to take a first step in addressing this gap in research on the experiences of LGB employees in the workplace.

This study takes a first step toward addressing this gap by examining the associations between LGB identity disclosure and critical team-specific attitudes and behaviors (i.e., trust in team, commitment to team, conflict with team, withdrawal from team) and the atemporal indirect role of perceived LGB identity support from the team through a cross-sectional survey of 159 employees.

Results demonstrated that perceptions of a supportive LGB team climate atemporally mediated the association between disclosure and relevant workplace variables. Specifically, disclosure of sexual identity to one’s work team is directly and indirectly, through perceived identity support, positively associated with trust and commitment toward the team. Furthermore, disclosure was indirectly, through perceived identity support, negatively associated with conflict and withdrawal from the team. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

The results of this study highlight the importance of perceived identity support when individuals disclosure their sexual orientation in a team context.

This study aims to investigate the impact of dissimilarity perceptions, specifically related to religious identity and socioeconomic class, on identity disclosure behavior within the workplace. It also explores the relationship between disclosure behavior and perceptions of workplace ostracism. The study further examines the moderating roles of psychological safety climate and diversity-focused human resource (HR) practices in these dynamics.

Using quantitative methods, this confirmatory study analyzes the relationships between dissimilarity perceptions, identity disclosure behavior, workplace ostracism perceptions, psychological safety climate and diversity-focused HR policies. Hypotheses are tested to understand the effects of these variables in the workplace context.

The findings reveal that subjective dissimilarity perceptions are negatively associated with identity disclosure behavior. In addition, disclosure behavior is positively linked to perceptions of workplace ostracism. Surprisingly, the study finds that the psychological safety climate moderates the relationship between dissimilarity perceptions and identity disclosure behavior, showing a positive relationship when psychological safety climate perceptions are high. Furthermore, perceptions of diversity-focused HR policies moderate the relationship between disclosure behavior and perceptions of workplace ostracism, indicating a weakened relationship when diversity-focused HR practices are perceived as stronger.

This study contributes to the understanding of workplace diversity, inclusion and management by emphasizing the role of subjective dissimilarity perceptions, identity disclosure behavior and workplace ostracism. It explores the moderating influence of psychological safety climate and diversity-focused HR practices, offering valuable insights for both theory and practical strategies in the context of diversity management.