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Research by Alyssa Grocutt, MSc’21, is infused in the personal. Her award-winning master’s in management organizational behaviour, examining the impact of parental work injuries on children and how those experiences affect leadership development in young adulthood, was rooted in the familiar – her father died in an on-the-job incident when she was a child.

For her PhD, Grocutt again opted to pursue a topic with a meaningful connection: Her own self-described tattoo hobby and what was a “fun, personal side project” on tattoos in the workplace grew into a dissertation and direction for academic inquiry.

“Tattoos are a niche area, but they’re a huge passion of mine,” explains Grocutt, whose body is more than half covered in ink. “Thinking about tattoos is such a source of joy to me, so I decided to explore how they’re treated in professional settings.”

Grocutt is interested in perceptions of visible tattoos and the realities of being a tattooed employee or leader. Via extensive online surveys, she examined both the perceptions of and behaviours toward tattooed individuals in the workplace.

Using written descriptions and images of a worker with either no tattoos, a friendly tattoo, or an intimidating tattoo, Grocutt asked respondents to imagine the worker as their colleague, and then asked for their perceptions of the worker’s competence, trustworthiness, “artistic-ness,” and riskiness. Additional questions sought information on how the respondent would act towards the tattooed worker in terms of discriminatory and respectful behaviours.

She found that workers with intimidating tattoos are more likely to be discriminated against through perceptions that they are riskier. “At the same time, workers with intimidating tattoos are also less likely to be discriminated against through perceptions that they are more artistic,” she says.

Each of these different perceptions affects behaviours toward the person sporting the intimidating tattoos, Grocutt says, highlighting a need for awareness around conscious and unconscious attitudes toward tattooed employees in the workplace.

This could mean rethinking ingrained approaches found in some professional environments. “Organizations shouldn’t require employees to cover their tattoos in the workplace,” says Grocutt, by way of an example, “but rather they should aim to enhance positive perceptions of tattooed workers.”

In September, Grocutt will begin a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary, under the supervision of Nick Turner, Com’96, Artsci’97, MSc’98, researching knowledge translation and dissemination of research insights. She will also continue to work on completing her own full-body suit of tattoos.

Grocutt’s passion for tattoos shows no signs of fading, and she hopes workplaces will come to recognize the hidden advantages of their visibility.

“For many tattooed people, especially heavily tattooed people – myself included – having their tattoos showing increases their feelings of authenticity. We know from other workplace research that when people feel more authentic at work, their mental health is better and their performance improves. I’d like to see workplace appearance norms change to be more accepting of employees’ self-expression, so they can show up as their true selves, which benefits both employees and organizations.”