Visible Tattoos Are A Thumbs Up At Work Turns Out
By Sidra Lackey
Good news for tattooed people in the workforce: employers aren’t likely to not hire you for being covered in tattoos and customers aren’t automatically turning their noses up at noticeable tattoos on you. In fact, both parties like seeing tattoos on workers in the workplace, a new study says. The study, "Do employees' tattoos leave a mark on customers' reactions to products and organizations?" is from a recent publication of Journal of Organizational Behavior. Enrica N. Ruggs (an associate professor of management in the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston) and Mikki R. Hebl (the Martha and Henry Malcolm Lovett Chair of Psychology and professor in Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business) conducted the study.
Researchers Ruggs and Hebl studied how workers with tattoos were seen by their employers and customers. The two also compared how customers perceived tattooed workers and the workplaces that hired them, with workplaces where workers weren’t tattooed. What they discovered was that in workplaces that are white-collar jobs (where workers are skilled artistically) customers viewed tattooed workers and the companies they work for, in the same positive manner of a company and its employees without tattoos. And sometimes customers saw tattooed employees and the companies they work for, even more positively than workplaces where workers weren’t tattooed.
The purpose of Ruggs and Hebl’s tattoos in the workplace research is to help companies improve policies about appearances in the workplace. "Although some previous research has shown that hiring managers are hesitant to hire employees with visible tattoos in part because they fear customers will view these employees as less professional, which may be harmful to business, our findings suggest that at least in some industries, customers are not that bothered by tattooed employees," Ruggs said.
This study is a win for tattooed people in all fields of work. The fear of having tattoos that are visible while trying to look for work or while working seems to be steadily diminishing in 2022. Perhaps in the near future, there won’t be a need for more studies on tattooed workers and non-tattooed workers because it truly won’t matter if you are considered a more professional employee if you aren’t tattooed. Because after all, having tattoos doesn't make a worker worse at a job. In the meantime, tattooed workers with visible tattoos who have jobs that allow them to not have to cover their tattoos up, rock that ink a lot more proudly while on the clock!