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This story appeared in the Spring 2020 Letters & Science magazine.

How many of us bring our whole selves to work? We tend to dress, talk and act differently around our co-workers than we would at home or with our friends. Professional expectations, etiquette and organizational culture all help determine our work personas. For recent graduates, learning to navigate this new terrain can be exciting, empowering—and challenging.

While they are in college, L&S students are encouraged to embrace heritage and gender identities, seek supportive communities and develop their own strong voices as part of their campus experience. Now, career prep can support this process of self-discovery—and even help them leverage it in the job market.

As part of its mission to help all L&S students to succeed, SuccessWorks at the College of Letters & Science has developed Identity at Work, a web-based hub directing students to expert resources on navigating the job and internship search process and thriving in the workplace, especially as these activities intersect with their identities.

“Identity is a key and important component of our students’ personal and professional development,” says Rebekah Pryor Paré, Associate Dean and SuccessWorks’ Executive Director. “Identity at Work is part of a broader effort at SuccessWorks to address our students’ unique needs and create a more inclusive campus. We include resources for LGBTQIA+ students, students with disabilities, undocumented students, veterans and service members, women, international students and students with multicultural identities.”

For each of these student populations, Identity at Work serves as a portal to on-campus resources, job boards, professional associations, networking groups, legal resources and other helpful, expert-driven information.

“It’s designed to help students feel they are not alone,” says Jorge Zuñiga, who advises students at SuccessWorks.

“It honors the idea that people will come to work with different experiences and identities that should be celebrated.”

[Identity at Work] honors the idea that people will come to work with different experiences and identities that should be celebrated.

The College of Letters & Science has the highest proportion of students from underrepresented groups at UW-Madison. This means that “different populations of students have different needs at different times,” according to Paré.

“In general, hiring and professional practices are culturally-specific, so the career preparation advice we give to students from different backgrounds may vary, depending on a student’s particular circumstance,” she explains. “Identity at Work helps students understand their rights in the workplace and it gives them opportunities to connect with employers, seek out mentorship, and feel empowered to represent themselves authentically.”

Forbes.com ran a story last spring on the importance of being authentic at work, acknowledging the risk involved for anyone belonging to a minority group. The authors, Randall S. Peterson and Kathleen O’Connor of the London Business School, asked: “To feel fully authentic at work, LGBTQ employees may wish to display photos of their partners or spouses. Can they bring their whole selves to work in this way? How much authenticity can religious people experience when meetings are scheduled at times when they are observing their religious traditions? Can ethnic minorities feel authentic when they are discouraged from wearing traditional dress at work?” It’s not only the employees who suffer when denied authenticity—the organization cheats itself, as well, choking off creativity and preventing true connection.

The idea for Identity at Work came from the information students were sharing in the advising surveys they were asked to fill out, says Zuñiga.

“More and more students have been sharing aspects of their identities,” he explained. “As advisors, it gave us a better understanding of their unique needs and we realized there was more we could do as an office.”

At first, a working group created an internal database of resources they could draw on to advise students, but then advisor and internship coordinator Kathleen Rause suggested sharing it with students. The online hub became a sneakily simple innovation that Paré says other colleges and universities have yet to implement on this scale.

“In L&S, we serve half of the entire UW-Madison student population, which means we have not only vast numbers of career interests and opportunities, but also students with a great variety of identities and ways they can play out in a work setting. So, we set out to build the best, most comprehensive resource possible,” Paré says.

Since launching in fall 2019, Identity at Work has been one of the most-visited pages on the SuccessWorks website.

“We want our students to know that we value them as people, in all of their identities,” says Rause. “The qualities that make them who they are, in addition to career skills, are a big part of the value they bring to any workplace.”