Why masking at work is harming talent, wellbeing and belonging

Somewhere in a comms agency right now, someone is adjusting their accent before they jump on a call. The version of themselves that grew up working-class does not, they have learned, travel well into a client presentation, so they smooth the edges off. They mirror the vocabulary, stay vigilant about how certain cultural references land and edit accordingly. They are brilliant at their job, which is partly why nobody notices the toll it takes on them privately. 

This is just one example of masking in the workplace. Masking can be structurally embedded that we stop seeing it as something that happens to people. We only see the polished output, call it professionalism, and that is the end of it. 

Research by Creative Access and FleishmanHillard UK on the language of discrimination in the creative industries found that three-quarters of people working in the sector say they have felt pressure to change their accents when dealing with clients. It also reported that 90 per cent of PR and communications professionals surveyed agreed that speaking in received pronunciation makes you more likely to be hired and promoted in their industry. Masking sits right inside that pressure: the cognitive and emotional labour of suppressing who you truly are to present a version of yourself that the environment will find acceptable. 

Masking can lead to burnout

Masking is most discussed in relation to neurodivergence, where the impact can be brutal. But it extends beyond that into areas like class, faith and trauma. The masking mechanism is the same whatever the particularity: sustained, effortful suppression of self, running underneath everything else you are required to do. Masking in the workplace is effectively self-policing and can lead to identity fragmentation, chronic fatigue and emotional numbness. 

For a lot of comms and PR professionals, there is a paradoxical communication. On the one hand, we are paid to construct authentic brand narratives; we counsel clients on the power of genuine voice, real stories and human connection. This is all while performing a tightly curated version of ourselves. Masking is a perfect example of the complex and contradictory places we can find ourselves orienting. 

In Pearn Kandola’s neurodiversity at work report 2024, based on a survey of 601 neurodivergent employees in the UK, 63 per cent said they had masked at work, hiding or suppressing their traits and discomfort to conform. The report links masking with anxiety, stress, exhaustion and poorer mental health, and notes that many respondents were reluctant to disclose their neurodivergence or request adjustments because they feared it would harm their job prospects or expose them to bias. 

What does sustained masking really cost? 

Neurologically masking can cause exhaustion in ways that do not recover over a weekend or with the occasional day off. The capacity for self-regulation does not replenish fully when it has been spent on consistent suppression over many years. Research on neurodivergent burnout points to something cumulative, a depletion that is qualitatively different from ordinary tiredness and which requires qualitatively different recovery time. Anyone running a continuous background process of self-editing is burning significant resources that could otherwise go elsewhere. 

Breaking the cycle requires awareness and courage

Spending too much time focused on maintaining a professional persona can come at a cost. When people feel they have to hide who they really are at work, they can become disconnected from their own identity. Many professionals describe feeling as though they are performing confidence rather than genuinely feeling it, and maintaining that façade takes energy. Over time, this can lead to exhaustion and make it harder to break the cycle without honest self-reflection and support.

We already know the long-term impact of masking at work. It can lead to burnout, anxiety, disengagement and talented people leaving organisations where they never felt able to be themselves. Too often, leaders mistake the signs for poor performance or a bad attitude, rather than recognising the toll of constantly trying to fit in. Conversations that should focus on support and understanding can instead become formal performance reviews or exit processes. The cost is high, not only for organisations but also for the people whose wellbeing and careers are affected.

The issue is how many organisations define belonging. In some agencies and comms teams, the culture has been shaped by people with similar backgrounds and experiences. As a result, those who feel they have to hide parts of themselves to fit in can find it much harder to feel accepted. What is often described as a strong workplace culture may simply reflect the experiences of people who have never had to adapt who they are to succeed.

In 2024, PRWeek UK and the UK Black Comms Network published findings from their One Step Forward Two Steps Black survey of Black and mixed-Black PR and communications professionals working in the UK. More than two-thirds had considered leaving the industry altogether and four in five reported experiencing indirect racial discrimination, from the way they are spoken to and judged, to how often they are overlooked in pitch rooms and awards shortlists. The report also found that 67 per cent felt the need to tone down their personalities as new hires to fit the workplace environment. These findings point to a culture where Black comms professionals feel pressure to change the way they talk, tone down their personalities and self-censor to fit in and be accepted. 

The systemic reframe requires us to stop treating burnout, anxiety and exits as individual failures of resilience and start reading them as information about the culture. It requires belonging to be redesigned to include the right to arrive as a complicated, real person rather than having to learn to perform otherwise.  

Five things people can do: 

1. Normalise honest disclosure in leadership behaviour: Leaders and senior talent need to model talking about their own needs, limitations and complexities, not just their strengths. This signals that asking for adjustments or naming a difficulty is not a career-limiting move but part of how work gets done well. 
2. Audit professionalism for hidden bias: Take a hard look at how you define being professional, particularly in recruitment, promotion and client-facing roles. Ask whose accents, styles of communication and ways of expressing emotion are being quietly penalised and rewrite criteria, so they focus on outcomes and integrity rather than conformity. 
3. Build explicit agreements around adjustments: Make it routine to ask people what helps them to do their best work and document agreed adjustments clearly. When adjustments are standard practice rather than exceptional favours, people are less likely to mask or hide their needs. 
4. Train managers to spot masking and burnout: Equip leaders to recognise signs of masking and neurodivergent burnout and to respond with curiosity rather than judgement. Performance conversations should include questions about how sustainable someone’s current way of working feels, not just whether targets are being met. 
5. Redesign culture fit as culture add: Move away from hiring and promoting for ‘fit’ and towards ‘add’: what perspectives, styles and lived experiences does this person bring that you do not already have? That shift alone makes it more possible for people to show up as themselves without paying for it with their health. 

Dannie-Lu Carr is an ILM Level 7 executive coach, senior training consultant and executive speaker coach specialising in personal impact, high-stakes communication and creativity under pressure. With 18+ years in leadership development and behavioural change, she helps senior and board-level leaders sharpen their presence, influence and message when it matters most. 

Further reading

Is your unconscious bias rejecting neurodivergent job applicants?

Stressed out: PR professionals on surviving the workplace pressure cooker

Protecting the brand: Avoiding diversity washing in marketing communications