woman standing and juggling with red balls
The Great Resignation isn't over. One in five workers plans to quit their jobs before the end of 2022, according to PwC's Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey. While a desire for higher salaries is in part driving this change, the search for fulfilling work is leading people to consider leaving their current employer for something entirely new. A second act for their career.
Changing jobs requires a level of adaptability. New colleagues have new ideas on how things should be done, different responsibilities require different skills, and navigating new social norms can prove challenging. But for those who used this revolution in how, where, and why we work to change careers into something more purposeful, they often need to access different parts of their identity to succeed. And women, broadly speaking, happen to excel at this — for one very particular reason.
Women tend to wear more hats and therefore have more identities. According to Dr. Sian Beilock, a prominent cognitive scientist, president-elect of Dartmouth and author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have To, women are well placed to successfully navigate the identity shifts that can come with new jobs. "Given that women tend to hold many different identities simultaneously, whether it's caregiver or through their job, I do think they are well set up to think about these shifts."
This adaptability comes with distinct workplace advantages. "When people hold multiple identities and can find joy in them, it can be a psychological buffer," says Beilock. For example, if someone has a tough day on the job as head of marketing, they can go home and hug their child and find fulfilment in the fact that they are a parent.
There’s another benefit, too. "Being able to rely on these different aspects of who we are can help us see ourselves as not just one thing," says Beilock. That's a strong protective factor because calling on different aspects of our identity in optimal moments can give us a leg up. For example, one study found that Asian American women performed better on a math test when their Asian identity was made salient versus their female identity. The positive and negative stereotypes associated with each identity made a difference in performance.
A simple conclusion is that the more identities we hold give us more pools of strengths upon which to draw — and a better chance at navigating change successfully. "Calling on those multiple aspects of who we are can be important. If we go back to this idea of resilience, changing jobs, retiring, and having second and even third acts — it's really a story about how we classify ourselves and our new story being more multi-dimensional. And that can be helpful in lots of situations."
For employers, the real opportunity is helping your people to see themselves in multiple lights. Ask people to write down five different identities they have, e.g. father, mother, brother, sister, manager, writer, author, gym-enthusiast, etc. Then, ask them to write down the strengths they have that make them successful in those roles. This simple activity will likely help people see themselves differently and help them be more adaptable to future changes at work.
