Personal Gewgaws May Hamper Professional Image

Personal vs. Professional: Think twice the next time you want to add your kids’ recent soccer picture to your cubicle. Too many personal items may smack of unprofessionalism, according to researchers at the University of Michigan’s business school. Based on interviews with managers, they have even come up with a benchmark: No more than one in five items should be of a personal nature. Any more than that and managers’ perceptions of your work habits may become unfavorable. The study involved 95 managers who were “given descriptions of workers that described them as professional or unprofessional.” The managers then were asked to affix stickers, which represented dozens of common items found in the workplace, onto color images of an office. Researchers found that “the image of someone who is professional versus unprofessional reflects the proportion of objects that reference their personal, non-work life,” although they caution this appears to be a phenomenon isolated to U.S. workplaces.