BEAUTY IN THE WORKPLACE - HELP OR HINDRANCE?

Beat 102-103: Welcome back to Wednesday’s Beat Talk. Now, new research has revealed that looks and style may be far more important than talent and capability in the career rat race. Research carried out by the Work Foundation in the UK has discovered that good-looking job applicants are far more likely to advance up the career ladder. Smart clothes, an attractive haircut and individual style are now deemed to be more important that ability and talent and clients or customers tend to warm more readily to attractive people so bosses now view looks as a key quality. To talk more on this issue, I’m joined by Ireland’s leading careers expert, author of Where’s My Oasis? – Rowan Manahan from Fortify Services. Rowan, good afternoon.

Fortify: Well hello there Niall, how are you?

Beat 102-103: Long time no speak, are you keeping well?

Fortify: Yes indeed, thank you.

Beat 102-103: Now, I suppose this has gone around for years, this idea that in certain industries, if you have the look – you’re going to get the job. If you’ve got two candidates and one is better-looking than the other; while they both may have equal abilities, you will find the better-looking candidate getting the job more often than not.

Fortify: When did you last see an ugly female newsreader on television?

Beat 102-103: This is it! Or even on reception desks in hotels or areas like that. But now it seems that some employers are actually putting image ahead of ability, which is new to me …

Fortify: Well, that would be one way of interpreting the data on that study. The 'Beauty Premium,' as it is known, is a well-documented phenomenon, or politically incorrect concept, in the marketplace. Social Scientists and Psychologists have conducted thousands of studies on this since the end of the Second World War; on how we react to the beautiful and to the not-so beautiful. And the virtually unanimous conclusion of all of this research is, yes of course, looks do matter and more than most of us would realise or acknowledge. The issue here is that it is politically incorrect to admit that look are important, because that is so 'superficial.' But bottom line, no matter what, people like to deal with attractive people.

Let me posit an idea on this to bring some balance to the argument: If looks were that important, the boardrooms of companies across the land would be populated by Supermodel-looking women and there would be no such thing as the glass ceiling. So the 'advantage of beauty' hypothesis is correct and proven – but only up to a point. Good-looking people are more likely to be hired, and paid well, and promoted, and looked after, and sent forward for training; BUT if you are overly attractive as a female going for a “serious” management job, you are actually LESS likely to get it than your slightly more dowdy, pince-nez-wearing, hair-in-a-bun, serious-looking colleague. Isn’t that extraordinary?

Beat 102-103: Wow! It’s interesting that in the survey, more than 90% of the bosses rated the right attitude and appearance, including looks and dress sense above skills and experience and the study warns that some men and women could even become unemployable because they are not considered sufficiently good-looking.

Fortify: And that is very true, building upon the concept of the “Minimum Entry Requirement.” So, for example, if I am conducting a selection process for a senior job on behalf of an employer; I am taking as read to a certain extent, qualifications, experience and perhaps even basic competence (because there are so many highly-qualified, well-experienced and competent people in the marketplace these days). So I am looking very closely at the far less tangible issues of motivation, and team fit, and confidence, and style and presentability and the ability to represent the organisation. So naturally, of course, an interviewer is going to gravitate towards the better-looking candidate, but that candidate would not have got their foot in the door, not a chance in hell, were they not appropriately qualified, trained and experienced at the outset.

Beat 102-103: Of course. An interesting quote from the Professor who carried out the survey. He said, “Aesthetic Labour is here to stay.” Is that a new phrase? I certainly haven’t heard it before.

Fortify: (laughing) That, along with the “Beauty Premium.” The origins of this particular issue derive from two major hypotheses: The first is that good-looking people do better because interviewers, managers, people in placement agencies or whoever, simply enjoy being in their company and enjoy their physical appearance. The second hypothesis is more insidious and it is that good-looking people are, in fact, more qualified in the first instance due to the accumulated advantage of their physical appearance and their ability to project that appearance – so they have gained better skills, education and indeed they may have a wider social network because people are more comfortable to be in their company merely because they are good-looking.

Beat 102-103: That’s a good point – you would imagine that their social skills are better-developed too because when they are out socially, they tend to find it easier to network and you have talked to us in the past about how vital that is these days.

Fortify: Very much so. Look at the boardrooms around the country. You will find tall people. They are not prone to obesity. They will almost all have good hair! You will rarely see facial hair on the men. You will see far more brunettes than blondes among the women. You will not see saggy waistlines on either sex in the boardroom. Look at our equality legislation. Our Employment equality Act hits nine areas where it is illegal to discriminate against a person: Age, Gender, Race, Religion, being Disabled, being a member of the Traveling Community, your Marital Status, your Sexual Orientation and your Family Status. No mention in there, you note, of your height, your weight, the clarity of your complexion, how good your hair is, how large your eyes are in your face and by the way, do you look like Natalie Imbruglia? No mention of these things. But these are the discriminations that are applied on an hourly and daily basis.

Beat 102-103: And not just in the workplace …

Fortify: Exactly! If you walk into a bar or a club and observe the preliminary mating rituals of the young, free and single members of our society. They are scanning the room, looking out for a potential life-mate. And they are rejecting potential mates from a distance of 20 metres without ever coming into close proximity to them so that the pheromones can start to do their work. People stand there going, “No – not my type. Not my type. Not my type. Oooh! – there’s a possible! Not my type. Not my type.” Five candidates eliminated on the basis of height, weight, posture, complexion, facial structure, hair colour, grooming. We all do this, all the time. So who’s to say that anyone is capable of turning that switch in their head off just because they are now in an interview room choosing the next Sales Manager?

Beat 102-103: This whole area of ‘image and style over substance’ has crept into so many aspects of daily life – the media, the pop stars, and so forth …

Fortify: I saw an interview with Keith Barry, the magician. He is being handled now by U2’s management company, Principle Management. But a condition of them taking him on as a client was that he had to lose three stone (19kg) in weight. Three stone!

Beat 102-103: But I suppose that this was only a natural progression that this whole image-over-substance thing would make its way into the workplace.

Fortify: Yes it was. In the world of media, the visual image is king. And television is the king of kings. The magazines and other visual media reinforce the messages and impressions that TV casts. We have all read oodles of reports on the pressure young people are feeling to be thin and how “fat” is now a dirty word in the under-8 age bracket. Why? Because we are endlessly bombarded with these flawless, airbrushed, perfectly symmetrical people on all the magazine covers. Likewise, we see the plastic surgery makeover reality programmes – ‘The Swan’ and these other ghastly shows. These are saying, “What matters is what is on the outside and what’s on the inside will change at some fundamental level as a result of some surgeon hacking the exterior into a more appealing configuration.”

Unspeakable concepts all, but the fact of the matter is, you throw enough mud at a wall and some of it will eventually stick. And yes, we are all prone to it. If we’re sitting watching Friends re-runs and Vegas and perfect newsreaders, perfect reporters and breathless weathergirls every evening; inevitably we are going to start evaluating the candidates who are coming for jobs in our companies with the same eyes and go, “Yeah. I like that one. I’m not quite sure why, but I do. She’s similarly qualified and experienced to the others, but for some reason I like her. Him. I choose him. He’s tall and he has a reassuring baritone timbre to his voice and he has ‘senior management’ hair.” There’s a sort of dreadful inevitability to it.

Beat 102-103: Yes, what’s disturbing in this report from the UK is that this attractiveness factor is creeping into industries in which people traditionally would have been employed for intellect, like banking.

Fortify: Yes, despite the fact that in the 21st century, we are looking at a Knowledge Worker marketplace. The capital of many organisations and the value that you bring to that organisation is sloshing around in your head. But that may not be sufficient. If you are not nicely packaged, and all of your competition is, you can forget it. We do mock interviews here at Fortify, we take people through the process in full dress rehearsals for important interviews or presentations and we can put them on camera if they want. And people are shocked at how they look. People are amazed at how they come across in terms of their little verbal tics, their non-verbal cues, their hesitancy, the sound of their own voice or their irritating habit of endlessly flicking their hair back up behind their ear. And many of them are equally surprised when I tell them that they are losing marks because their shoes don’t go with their pants. And that’s the issue – losing marks. You don’t gain marks for being perfectly groomed, but you can lose marks if you are not. If you are perfectly turned out, you blend in and you are deemed to be a fit. If you look like Grace Kelly walking in the door on top of that, so much the better (unless you are female and going for a senior post).

This is basic human instinct at work here. Anthropologically, attractive people are deemed to have advantages. They look like they will make better mates, they look like they will be better providers. What makes for an attractive man? Flat stomach and slim hips – both of which would make him a leaner, faster, more effective hunter. What is a beautiful woman? She has a narrow waist, defined hips and rounded breasts – all of which are signals that she can bear robust, healthy children. It’s so primordial, so deeply rooted in the unconscious, you can’t really fight against this. If you are not blessed with strong features and the resultant good looks, you need to recognise that the world is not really a meritocracy and you’re are going to have to compensate for that perceived inadequacy. Even if you are smarter than the average bear, you are going to need to dress up what you have and make sure you highlight your best physical attributes. Look at the case in New York: Laura Zubulake, was awarded $29 million for being called “old and ugly” and was fired when she took a complaint.

Beat 102-103: You can call me anything you like if I can get $29 million out of it.

Fortify: (laughing) And throw mud at me while you’re doing it!

Beat 102-103: We got a text from a listener who says that the only place where this beauty issue doesn’t seem to apply at the moment is in Irish politics. We really have some exceptions to the rule on our Government’s front bench don’t we?

Fortify: Oh, that’s a little unkind.

Beat 102-103: What I find interesting too is that historically women always a hard time on this. Women had to be pretty to work on the front desk or the airlines or whatever. But now it applies to men. This report shows that men are being turned down for being “too hairy” or for “having bad posture.”

Fortify: Yes, very much so. Because your external appearance, comportment and grooming bespeak your energy levels, your discipline level. Nobody wants to go into a shop that has broken windows, peeling paint and litter piled up at the entrance. I’m a forty-something who is going a little soft in the middle. I’m sure Principle Management would be telling me to drop some weight if I was looking to pursue a career in television. On that medium, what’s coming out of my mouth is measured only after the viewer has decided if I am sufficiently easy on the eye. Have you ever met a supermodel? I’ve seen a few of the big names up close and, in real life, they all look like famine victims. On TV, they just look beautiful and slim and elegant. But the camera is not kind to normal-looking people. And we carry those biases into the workplace …

Beat 102-103: Well, thank God I chose radio as my career … Rowan, thank you very much for your time. What’s the web address if people want to find out more on this?

Fortify: We’re on www.fortifyservices.com

Beat 102-103: And the book is Where’s My Oasis? On the shelves now and doing very well I hear.

Fortify: Yes, there’s lots on this subject in it and making sure that you’re looking and dressing and smelling the part as you go into the interview room. It’s a very important detail, one that we all take for granted, but time and again I have seen candidates miss their chance because they just didn’t make a big enough effort. It’s like when you were in primary school: you didn’t get any extra marks if you were really neat with your homework, but you could lose marks if you weren’t neat enough. The same holds true in the interview room. You are working with familiar base raw material here: the person that you are.

A little thought and a little effort and everybody can look better. Everybody can dress better. Everybody can find the right colour to wear underneath their chin, whether it be a shirt and tie for a man or a top and scarf for a woman. Get those colours right and they will light you up and make your face look great. Get them wrong and you are walking in there looking like a week-old corpse.

Beat 102-103: (Laughing)

Fortify: No kidding here. If you examine this closely and take professional advice on it, the contrast between putting the right colours in that triangle under your chin and getting the wrong colours there is VAST! And that can make a big difference to people’s initial impression of you.

Likewise, if you are going for a job, a promotion, within your company; management already have a perception of who you are and what you are. If you show up looking 10-15% better than you normally do and you are demonstrably taking the process seriously – it all contributes to your chances of success. Better yet, start doing that now, weeks or months before the interview. Gear up your game. Just watch it – people will react better to you. Oh sure, the begrudgers may poke fun at your “interview suit” at first, but you know what? It filters in. It’s a drip-feed strategy, but it is amazing the difference these little details can make. It works.

Beat 102-103: Rowan, thank you for your time and your ideas today.

Fortify: My pleasure.

Beat 102-103: That’s Rowan Manahan there, and he always has some food for thought, he always has an interesting perspective on these things …