The Bias of Offices Saying “We Are Family”

I was interviewing for a financial analyst position and was in the second stage of the process. It was a medium sized financial services firm and the opportunity would be a $20,000 raise — if I landed it.

My prospective boss, a charismatic middle aged man, sat across the table from me with a subordinate on each side. A marked up copy of my resumes sat in front of each of them. Everything was going great and then the boss smiled and said, “I like to think of us as a family here.”

I tried to conceal my wince. I’d heard that phrase many times before and it generally didn’t lead to good things.

It pains me to say it, but there’s some truth to the analogy, and not in a good way. This “family talk”, as I call it, has baggage and implicit bias attached to it. Yet you’ll inevitably hear it if you work long enough in corporate. Here’s why you should steer clear as an employee, and as a manager, of falling into this trap.

Where the analogy works

Office jobs are consuming and can feel like you are living with coworkers. Familial kinship with them can help you endure and weather the storms. Heck, the saddest part about leaving my jobs has always been the loss of those work-friends, many of whom I genuinely cared about. But it’s rare that you can stay in touch with all of them.

A company is also like a family when they attach unfair expectations to you. They won’t respect your feelings or appreciate and value your work properly. If you prioritize other things over your job, they’ll be bitter. Then, they’ll act surprised when you up and leave for other opportunities.

What people often forget is that family talk at an office also reinforces multiple biases. Per Psychology professor at NYU, Tessa West, who is the author of Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do About Them, this framework is “slippery and bias-prone, and often harms those who are cut from a different cloth than the typical ‘family’ member.”

It also allows for more leniency with people saying and doing outrageous or offensive things,— because of a shared history. People might explain away an offensive remark, as “That’s just Uncle Jared being himself.”

Additionally, this family approach causes problematic gender dynamics. With a work-family, the tasks that feel more janitorial and group-driven, are often passed off to female workers just as they are in many homes. This dynamic emerges quite naturally as us men hold 4 out of 5 of the highest ranking corporate positions.

Families are another layer of hierarchy in an already hierarchal culture. And if you are the odd one out in the family (in any small dimension), it can lead to stigmatization. I’ll give you an example.

The personality test at our department

A special HR consultant came in to do personality tests at my last company, which had a family culture. The test was intended to be a fun exercise in team building. We all took our individual tests, which felt a bit like a Myers-Briggs Personality Test.

One week later, the consultant returned to present the results. As I looked up, there was a giant three dimensional graph on the projector with dots on it and a pair of initials by each dot. Wherever your initials landed on this graph, gave you an idea of your personality results. Then I noticed my initials weren’t up there and wondered if I’d done something wrong.

I raised my hand and said, “Hi there. I’m Sean Kernan. I noticed my initials aren’t on there?”

The consultant glanced at the chart, then smiled and said, “Oh yes! Your score was way off on the outer side of this grid and we couldn’t fit yours into the chart. You are quite the character!”

This led to a chorus of laughs. I wasn’t entirely surprised at the result, as I always felt like a different person than them. But I didn’t like how I’d been singled out in front of everyone as the weird guy.

It exemplified how outsiders can feel like the problem child that mama didn’t want. And here’s the thing: this family culture comes easily. Our desire for group acceptance is inbuilt and easily fosters this dynamic. But any dividing line — race, religion, sex, neurodivergence — can be grounds to make you an outsider. You can easily be surrounded by Organizational Mean Girls.

Distinguishing work and family

Per Dr. Tessa West, there might be similarities between work families and family-families. But there are significant differences. For example, you can often rely on your family members goodwill and intuition to help resolves disputes and go above and beyond when you are in need. There’s an established history and relationship that carries greater weight.

But in an office, people are more self-serving. Expectations of self-sacrifice and compromise in the name of your relationship are far lower. It also paves the way for people to cross boundaries with you, embracing the work kinship a bit too much.

Yes, having a work family can feel like having a great group of friends in the trenches with you — if you’re one of the favorites and like the majority. You’ll feel welcome, and like you are moving up in the workplace. People might do huge favors for you.

But if you are the odd one out, people may not take you as seriously. You may find it much harder to get hired, and if you do get hired, feel like Pluto: always on the edge of knowing if you are actually “one of them”.

Work families also spawn other problematic behaviors, like the kiss-up kick-down person. This is the coworker who curries favor from more important family members, and kicks down on other fringe members to elevate their own position.

In short, family cultures promote excessive ingroup-outgroup thinking, which is particularly insidious and leads to discriminatory practices in the office, hiring and promotions. It even hurts the performance of people who feel like outsiders.

Where to go from here

It’s only natural that family culture managers upsell these benefits as a potential employer. Per social identity theory, we are inclined to emphasize the benefits of connections we identify with, and overlook their toxic components. If you are a manager at such a firm, I encourage you to anonymously audit your employees, and get their feedback on your work culture.

A job should have clearly defined responsibilities that you stick to. There should be reasonable expectations and communication. It’s good to be friendly with coworkers, but don’t let this stray into having a “work wife” or “work husband”.

Professional boundaries will naturally be crossed if the language around your job becomes more familial. It’s not healthy to work in an office where someone’s status feels more like a birthright, than an earned and meritocratic position.

To the potential employees seeing this, steer clear of offices that invite you to join their family. They might be a family, but they’ll still fire and bully you, especially if you aren’t like them.