GMAT Essays (AWA)

“Employees should keep their private lives and personal activities as separate as possible from the workplace.”

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

Whether Employees should keep their private lives and personal activities out of the workplace is a controversial issue. Others may state that when employees share their private perspectives that it creates cohesion in the workforce. However, in my view the risk of perceived offense and exclusion outweigh the potential benefits of fraternization in a company.

The chief reason for my view is that a group of employees may partake of a behavior that could be perceived offensive by another, even when the group is well meaning in its intentions. For instance, while I was employed at Electronic Arts I witnessed a group of employees partake in online gambling. Another individual in the same group felt pressured to join and instead chose to voice a complaint to upper management. Fortunately, this particular instance had a positive outcome. However, if the employee had felt seriously offended, then the company as a whole could have been legally liable for damages.

Another reason for my view is that personal activities may be a reason to form groups to exclude coworkers. For example, in a recent episode of the TV hit sitcom 'The Office'; Jim, the protagonist, transfers to another office where all of his coworkers spend the day playing video games. Unfortunately, Jim is not very good at video games and gets reprimanded by the boss, even though he is good at his actual job, a salesman. This clearly indicates how sharing a personal activity can be detrimental to the productivity of a workforce, by rewarding achievement in personal activities over job performance.

In sum, employees should withhold sharing their private lives and personal activities at work. In most cases, the potential liability for perceived offense and the risk of exclusion outweigh the benefits that could be gained.