By Géraldine Galindo and Vedika Lal
New research reveals why Gen Z workers hide their identities and how organisations’ authentic signaling can build lasting workplace trust.
As Gen Z enters the global workforce, two in five young professionals plan to hide their gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, neurodivergence, or social class, that is, their “invisible identities”[i], throughout their careers. Research from ESCP Business School reveals that young talent masks invisible identities because generic diversity promises by employers lack credibility and fear of career penalties remains high. To rebuild trust, leaders must move beyond performative statements and signal authentically through structural, resilient inclusion frameworks.
Why are young professionals hiding their invisible identities?
For years, corporate leadership has championed the ethos of bringing your whole self to work[ii]. However, research from the ESCP Leadership and Inclusive Management Institute reveals that incoming professionals are choosing to conceal their identities over being transparent. Studying 576 business students across ESCP’s London, Paris, Madrid, and Turin campuses, researchers uncovered widespread identity masking.
Nearly two in five workforce entrants (39.2%) plan never to disclose core aspects of their identity to colleagues or employers. Furthermore, 51.0% of respondents have never disclosed their invisible identities to academic or professional administration. This protective hesitation shapes every stage of employment:
- Permanent concealment: 2% intend to keep their invisible identities permanently private throughout their careers.
- Delayed disclosure: 3% will wait until they are securely hired before sharing their identity.
- Interview risk: only 6.4% feel safe enough to disclose an invisible identity during a face-to-face interview.
The strain is particularly severe for neurodivergent individuals, who comprise 24.3% of the ESCP survey respondents. These individuals often report heightened vigilance, increased mental health strain, and pressure to mask neurodivergent traits to avoid social stigma and safeguard career progression. In the current climate, disclosing an invisible identity appears to be associated more with emotional vulnerability than with institutional support.
How does corporate backlash fuel the identity masking crisis?
Global diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives face an intense dual-track reality. This reality did not emerge overnight but is the product of a five-year pendulum swing between corporate over-commitment and political backlash. To avoid controversy, many firms have engaged in diversity hushing[iii], replacing titles like Head of DEI with risk-averse descriptors like Head of Culture or VP of Talent Strategy. However, this retreat has likely undermined trust with incoming Gen Z talent[iv],[v]. The ESCP Invisible Identities study reveals that 76.6% of job applicants do not check a company’s corporate DEI stance before applying. This behaviour does not reflect indifference toward inclusion, but rather, demonstrates that young talent possibly views generic HR brochures and rebranded corporate slogans as performative gestures that offer little real protection[vi],[vii]).
Who speaks on authentic signaling and why does it matter?
Understanding why Gen Z distrusts corporate messaging requires examining what organisations really signal. When an organisation communicates its values, employees evaluate whether those statements represent authentic structural commitments or empty marketing statements. Key researchers across management literature highlight how different types of workplace signals impact employee behavior:
- Negative signaling and misalignment: when an organisation’s public framing clashes with its actual internal practices, it operates as a negative signal that directly destroys an employee’s sense of workplace belonging[iv].
- Conditional inclusion signals: inconsistent organisational actions send mixed signals to marginalised groups. When companies champion diversity in theory but retreat during political controversy, employees receive a clear, unspoken signal that their inclusion is conditional on staying quiet and fitting existing norms[v].
- Performative signals as empty signifiers: superficial KPIs and compliance metrics can function as performative signals. These gestures allow institutions to signal progress outwardly while leaving structural inequalities completely unresolved, leading to what employees perceive as diversity dishonesty[viii].
As such, we suggest that organisations may benefit from shifting toward more authentic forms of signaling. To build credibility with employees, particularly incoming Gen Z talent, leaders may need to consider higher-cost, harder-to-fake signals, such as sustained DEI funding, consistent resource allocation, and continued executive-level messaging, even during periods of external political backlash.
| Signaling approach | Operational characteristics | Possible impact on Gen Z workforce |
| Performative signaling | Top-down HR brochures, PR campaigns, and relabeling
|
Likely triggers skepticism, diversity dishonesty, and identity masking |
| Conditional signaling | Public support that retreats under socio-political pressure
|
Sends mixed signals; and likely reinforces hyper-vigilance and masking
|
| Authentic high-cost signaling | Sustained resource allocation, transparent governance, and non-negotiable advocacy
|
Has the potential to build long-term trust, psychological safety, and ultimately, authentic disclosure
|
By replacing performative claims with high-cost, authentic signals, organisations can show that their commitment to inclusion is permanent rather than opportunistic.
How can leaders replace performative gestures with authentic signals?
To overcome identity masking and establish genuine organisational trust, leaders must build a bridge macro-level governance with practical, day-to-day operational safety. Drawing on both our own findings and previous studies, we propose that replacing performative commitments requires combining strategic institutional mandates with direct managerial actions:
Strategic institutional mandates
- Establish intersectional governance: move beyond HR silos by adopting a learning and effectiveness modelvi. Senior executives, legal counsel, and board members must integrate diversity into core strategic decision-making and collective power-sharing.
- Promote plurality of perspective: Direct institutional resources toward supporting grassroots employee resource groups and diverse internal networks. Safeguarding a plurality of perspectives prevents organisational groupthink and upholds decision-making integrity[ix].
- Maintain consistent signaling without hushing: resist the urge to silence inclusion commitments when external political friction arises. Sustaining programme funding and executive advocacy sends an authentic, high-cost signal that diversity is a non-negotiable core value.
- Use longitudinal interventions: replace isolated, “one-and-done” diversity workshops with multi-year skill development tracksv. Sustained infrastructure prevents perceptions of virtue signaling and transforms symbolic commitments into operational realities[viii].
Operational & managerial actions
- Let go of all-or-nothing disclosure mechanisms: replace rigid, binary HR disclosure forms with flexible environments that normalise partial transparency. This would allow employees to share aspects of their identity incrementally without fear of career penalties.
- Train line managers for day-to-day psychological safety: move beyond high-level policy statements by actively training line managers to cultivate daily psychological safety and support team members managing hidden identities.
- Implement direct workplace accommodations & burnout policies: establish clear internal burnout policies and proactively provide workplace accommodations, for example, for neurodivergent employees, rather than placing the administrative burden of self-advocacy entirely on the individual.
- Replace generic messaging with measurable action: replace HR brochures and rebrand corporate slogans with transparent, trackable internal policies that directly protect mental health and workplace well-being.
Conclusion
The decision of 40% of future business leaders to conceal their invisible identities requires us to rethink and challenge traditional, performative DEI. We therefore believe that grounding organisational commitment in relational accountability rather than short-term financial returns is essential for long-term credibility[x]. With ongoing political backlash and corporate hesitation, glossy brochures no longer build credibility with Gen Z talent. To earn trust, organisational leaders must embrace authentic signaling by embedding intersectional governance, maintaining public commitments under pressure, and providing concrete psychological safety on the floor. We believe only through accountable, high-cost actions can businesses create workplaces where future leaders no longer feel forced to hide who they are.
About the Authors
Géraldine Galindo is full professor in the Work & Human Relations department on the Paris campus and director of the Institute for Leadership and Inclusive Management at ESCP Business School.
Vedika Lal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Leadership and Inclusive Management, attached to the Work & Human Relations department of ESCP Business School.
