Abstract
This study examines employees at a metal fabrication plant and their experiences with a workplace wellness initiative, which included on-site CrossFit classes. Interviews with 16 workers and participant observation revealed d/Discourses that rationalized worker compliance and resistance to the wellness initiative. Through a discourse tracing analysis, the authors propose the novel concept of parallel ideal worker identities to describe how organizational d/Discourses (de)valued (a) blue-collar worker and (b) “healthy worker” identities. These d/Discourses created resistance to the wellness initiative because they made salient how the organization privileged the “healthy worker” identity over the traditionally constructed blue-collar worker identity through unobtrusive control.
Keywords
Introduction
Nearly 90% of organizations in the US that employ more than 10,000 workers have a wellness program or gym (Mattke et al., 2013). This statistic demonstrates that workplace wellness is ubiquitous throughout U.S. work culture, yet much of the research on workplace wellness has neglected how these programs function in blue-collar contexts. This oversight may be due in part to the assumption that blue-collar workers are exempt, as most blue-collar workers engage in movement through their everyday manual labor. Despite these assumptions, some blue-collar organizations promote wellness campaigns, and this context could yield important theoretical and practical insights on workplace wellness.
A blue-collar workplace wellness program warrants further study for a number of reasons. Blue-collar work covers a wide swath of work, ranging from skilled labor positions to physical labor practices (e.g., factory workers, machinists, miners, and tradespeople). Workers are often paid hourly and are comprised of lower socio-economic status, often inheriting generational poverty (Gibson & Papa, 2000). Blue-collar socialization and assimilation practices blur organizational paternalism with care (Gibson & Schullery, 2000). As a result, blue-collar workers tend to accept arduous working conditions, often enduring these challenges as identity performances of a revered work ethic (Lucas, 2011). While blue-collar worker identity is enacted through physical labor and upholding cultural rules and norms (e.g., harsh environment, enduring long-hours, avoiding medical or family leave), a blue-collar wellness program is paradoxical in that wellness is not typically associated with blue-collar work. A few exceptions include blue-collar facilities that emphasize safety trainings as a part of regulatory practices (Zoller, 2003) and employee assistance campaigns that aim to curb alcohol/tobacco abuse (Sorensen et al., 2004), but neglecting issues like nutrition and fitness.
One concern about the role of workplace wellness across unique work contexts is the limited space for worker dissent. Endeavoring to improve one’s health is often represented as an unquestioned ideal in a neoliberal economy emphasizing individual self-care responsibility (Cederström & Spicer, 2015; James & Gill, 2018). The discursive constructions of what constitutes healthy has become a rhetorical directive with potentially exploitative outcomes. Discursive constructions of wellness tend to favor narrow, Western-centric views while ignoring marginalized, intersectional identities with diverse health and wellness needs. LeGreco and Tracy’s (2009) discourse tracing affords researchers the opportunity to examine discrepancies within these d/Discourses 1 by first finding discursive ruptures which are defined as “significant events or changes that signal moments of discursive organization or reorganization” (p. 1524). Discourse tracing enables scholars to observe how events alter d/Discourses and worker identities by focusing on micro, meso, and macro d/Discourses. In the context of the present study, discourse tracing helps make chronological sense of the wellness initiatives while exposing ruptures that complicate blue-collar identity regulation.
The purpose of this study is to: (a) examine the micro, meso, and macro d/Discourses that engender the employee compliance and/or resistance to a workplace wellness program in a blue-collar organization, and (b) explore how these d/Discourse enable and/or constrain the performances of blue-collar worker identities. The following section reviews the current organizational wellness literature and its relationship to blue-collar worker identity, unobtrusive control and d/Discourse.
Workplace Health Promotion
Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) encapsulates ways that organizations endorse health, safety, and wellness considerations for its employees. As provisions for public health have diminished across the U.S., the responsibility for maintaining wellness has transferred from the state to individuals and their employers. Organizations are financially incentivized by insurance companies to provide comprehensive services ranging from routine medical examinations to fitness facilities. Functionalist perspectives emphasize health and fitness as variables to manage stress (Grawitch et al., 2007; Parks & Steelman, 2008), reduce absenteeism (Hamar et al., 2015), and improve employee productivity (Berry et al., 2010) among others. While the instrumentalism of managerialist approaches to leveraging WHP for organizational gain are well-documented (Dale & Burrell, 2014; Zoller, 2003), the definition for what constitutes a healthy workplace remains contested (Harrison & Stephens, 2019; James & Zoller, 2018).
Discursive understandings of wellness take on vastly different approaches depending on work context. Within white-collar organizations, WHPs may emphasize nutrition and fitness. In blue-collar settings, WHPs have focused on employee safety. Indeed, all workers need access to alternative wellness outlets, yet some scholars have raised questions about employers crossing privacy and cultural boundaries (Ford & Scheinfeld, 2016). In the U.S., health-literacy is lowest among those earning lower wages, including most blue-collar workers (Berkman et al., 2011). Harrison and Stephens (2019) emphasized an actively co-constructive process towards workplace wellness, potentially leading to more commitment and engagement. Workplace wellness can have positive effects on worker identity by linking outside-of-work identities to work (Dailey & Zhu, 2017), but others point to in-group/out-group bias contributing to workforce fragmentation (James & Zoller, 2018). To understand how the blue-collar worker may warrant more contextual and sensitive wellness consideration, the next section provides an overview of blue-collar healthy worker identities and its connection to unobtrusive control theory.
Identity Work and d/Discourse
Identity work develops through social interaction and the active internal management of the various roles individuals play on a daily basis (Kuhn, 2009; Wieland, 2010). Individuals develop a sense of self based on their experiences as employees, romantic partners, healthcare patients as well as through assimilation with particular social groups (Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004). The use of d/Discourse helps inform what those identities look like through the symbolic representation of what an ideal identity for a worker or a patient should be. Wieland (2010) described the ideal self as “culturally situated and discursively constructed expectations for whom one should be that shape identity work and identity regulation” (p. 511). The identity regulation process relies on individual agency and self-reflexivity in crafting a positive identity. Finding a balance can be difficult in striving for idealized identity and struggling with the brute facts of the body (Zanin, 2018). Wieland (2010) described how Swedish cultural values of ambiguity and uncertainty enabled her participants to reconcile multiple ideal selves depending on situation. Pepper and Larson (2006) also observed how multiple organizational identities are “discursively created, conflicting premises that compete for the self-definition of organization members” (p. 51), complicating identity work by relegating some identities and privileging others.
Identity work shares an important interdependence with discursive approaches. Foucault’s articulation of the d/Discourse (i.e., discourse signifying everyday talk, whereas Discourse signifying the assumptions, values, and worldviews embedded within communication; Ashcraft, 2007), distinguishes how symbolic formations guide behaviors via discursive control. For example, Zanin (2018) explained how an athlete’s injury concealment—an act of identification with their team—was related to the organizational discursive premise that athletes’ bodies should be sacrificed for team success.
Moreover, identity tensions emerge when discursive archetypes and the materiality of labor clash. Richardson and James (2017) documented how firefighters’ material reality of their work contrasted with societal expectations of the heroic firefighter identity archetype (e.g., running into a burning building and saving lives vs. the likelihood of being unable to save lives much of the time). Identity regulation should consider the discursive resources that constitute one’s understanding of identity, including the materiality of labor (Kuhn, 2006). Within WHP, an idealized ‘healthy’ self may draw on discursive resources that control identity regulation. The idealized healthy employee identity is conceptualized as the “expectation[s] for what a good person should be” (Wieland, 2010, p. 504) thus conflating outside of work identities with neo-normative work identities (Fleming, 2014).
Unobtrusive Control, Resistance, and Identity Work
Identity regulation frequently factors into critical issues surrounding control and resistance. Zoller (2003) expressed concerns about WHP as an exploitative form of managerial control itself, and the effects of promoting wellness cultures where unobtrusive control measures may render resistance more difficult. Unobtrusive control theory describes how organizational members are guided to make decisions based on socialized organizational premises (i.e., through the (re)production of organizations d/Discourse), feedback from highly-identified organizational members, and through organizational identification (Tompkins & Cheney, 1985). Employees are socialized to make decisions based on organizational premises learned through both implicit and explicit messaging. For example, consider a manager that repeats the mantra “eat well, move well, think well.” A highly-identified organizational member would likely engage in practices that align with the organizationally defined premise and thus demonstrate their identity as an organization member. These messages function via d/Discourses that (re)produce organizational premises function to influence employee decision-making. When organizational members reproduce neoliberal d/Discourses about work and health, highly-identified members may self-govern towards managerially imposed health/work values (Fleming, 2014; Zanin & Bisel, 2020).
The interconnectedness of identity work, unobtrusive control theory, and d/Discourse complicate how control manifests in organizations. Each variable is linked to institutional forces and coupled with the promotion ofhealthism as a neoliberal virtue (Cederström & Spicer, 2015), it is critical to examine the micro/meso/macro forces that influence organizational decision-making within WHP. The present study examines the specific d/Discourses and identity work related to blue-collar wellness initiatives. Specifically, we seek to contextualize the d/Discourses within the socio-materiality of blue-collar work. Thus, the present study was guided by the following research questions: 2
What d/Discourses do blue-collar employees use to rationalize their own and others’ compliance and/or resistance to wellness initiatives?
What organizational ventures shape the formation, appropriation, and/or rejection of d/Discourses related to wellness initiatives?
Method
This study utilized data that originated from a consulting project aimed at understanding employee identity regulation and participation in a blue-collar workplace wellness initiative. The authors employed a method of iterative analysis (Tracy, 2020) and discourse tracing (LeGreco & Tracy, 2009) to understand how d/Discourses functioned in conjunction with the implantation of a workplace wellness program. This specific organizational context was chosen as an exemplar of a workplace wellness program within a blue-collar organizational culture. In selecting the research site, the first author considered: (a) feasibility—an ability to access the site and collect data, (b) yield—an ability to obtain enough data, (c) suitability—an alignment with theoretical research aims and (d) compatibility—an alignment with researcher’s embodied identities, experiences, and expertise (Tracy, 2020).
Research Context
MetFab (pseudonym) is a metal fabrication plant located in the southwestern U.S., employing nearly 100 workers, ranging from general machinists and welders to specialized computer numerical controlled (CNC) lathe operators. More than 90% of employees engaged in manual labor on the shop-floor; the remainder were managers and office staff. Established in the 1950s as a blacksmith shop, MetFab evolved into manufacturing with a focus on pumping equipment. MetFab provided demographic data to the researchers indicating eight employees self-identified as Black, 62 as Latinx, 3 and 27 as White. In total, eight women and 91 men were employed at MetFab during the time of data collection. 4 The average salary across all employees was $33,834.
MetFab Wellness Initiative Programing
MetFab began its wellness initiative in 2000, focusing on meeting the “physical, financial, and spiritual wellbeing of [its] employees” (Fieldnotes). Participation in the wellness initiative was open to both full-time employees and their families. In the initial stages, MetFab employed a chiropractor and encouraged employees to get weekly adjustments. In 2005, MetFab brought on a nutritionist and emphasized low-sugar meals to regulate employee blood-sugar levels. Later, MetFab employed an on-site physician for employees and dependents. MetFab implemented a CrossFit training program and opened its on-site gym in 2008. CrossFit is a fitness training program combining high-intensity interval training with weightlifting movements and calls for a low-carbohydrate diet like the Paleolithic diet (Herz, 2015). As part of the wellness initiative, MetFab offered information sessions where employees were directed to a weekly one-hour personal finance, quality-control, or nutrition lecture. Notably, MetFab is self-insured, meaning that MetFab internally manages employee insurance claims. MetFab also pays out-of-pocket for chronic health conditions. MetFab managers and employees differ in perceptions as to whether the wellness programs are required or encouraged. For example, Donny (MetFab CEO), framed wellness as an “employee benefit” that employees can choose to take advantage of, whereas several employees stated that there were consequences for not participating such as being passed over for a raise. These differences in perception were related to the reproduction of certain d/Discourse discussed further in our findings.
Data Collection
The first author approached MetFab after watching a promotional video about its commitment to employee wellbeing through CrossFit. The first author spoke with MetFab owner and CEO, Donny. Donny provided the authors with a letter of support and agreed to institutional review board guidelines. The first and third authors conducted 6 days of site visits, conducting observations and interviews from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. (i.e., a total of 48 hours on site) over a three-week period.
Interview Participants
Participants were recruited through a purposive, convenient method of sampling. A recruitment email was sent to employees from Donny. Employees volunteered to participate, and interviewees were coordinated by Donny. Participants provided consent and were informed of the confidentiality practices (e.g., de-identified, aggregate data sharing with MetFab). In total, 16 semi-structured, formal interviews were conducted with employees ranging from shop-floor workers, managers, to the CEO about their wellness initiative experiences. Participants’ mean age was 39 years (SD = 12.05) and tenure with the company ranged from 5 months to 27 years (SD = 7.41 M = 6.62 years). Only self-identified male employees participated in the study (95% of employees at MetFab identified as male). After interviews, employees were asked to refer other interested employees to participate. Each interview was one-on-one with either the first or third author, with the exception of their collaborative interview with Donny. The first and third author discussed their reactions together and debriefed multiple times a day. The interview protocol included questions like: “Why do you think some employees do not participate in CrossFit? How has participating in CrossFit impacted your work, career, family?” Interview length ranged from 19 to 71 minutes (SD = 13.98, M = 41 minutes). Transcribed interviews yielded 380 double-spaced pages.
Observations and Fieldnotes
The first and third author observed the CrossFit sessions on two separate occasions for 60-minutes each time, observing employees before, during and after the workouts. Observational notices were posted and emailed, and the researchers addressed employees before the workouts. The first and third authors toured the facility and ate lunch with employees in the MetFab cafeteria. Once off-site, the authors expanded headnotes (Lindlof & Taylor, 2019) into fieldnotes (i.e., detailed documentation of participant-observation). Observational data yielded 60 pages of fieldnotes. Although the fieldnote data is not a central focus of the analysis, the ethnographic observations were used to supplement participant perspectives to help “actively create realities and meanings” (Emerson et al., 1995, p. 213) against the backdrop of participant voice. Moreover, these observations were then utilized to ask follow-up, and probing questions within later formal interviews (e.g., “I see people in their jeans and work boots during the workout, why do you think that is?”). We also reviewed MetFab documents and artifacts in the case study analysis to further contextualize participants’ (re)production of organizational discourses. These supplementary materials included the (a) employee handbook, (b) MetFab website, and (c) promotional media of the wellness initiatives.
Data Analysis
The second author was invited to collaborate during the data analysis. Data analysis unfolded through a data-driven, multistep, iterative process (Tracy, 2020). First, we engaged in a primary cycle of coding of the interview transcripts. During this step, we used RQ1 (i.e., What d/Discourses do blue-collar employees use to rationalize their own and others’ compliance and/or resistance to wellness initiatives?) as a guide. To answer, we reduced the dataset for discussions of behavior that indicated resistance or compliance (e.g., arriving late or not participating in CrossFit classes, wearing jeans and boots to workouts, vs. regular attendance and nutrition compliance). Next, each author engaged in an iterative process of comparison (Tracy, 2020) to code the same two interviews. A process of iterative comparison was accomplished by treating each participant’s rationalization of the behavior as little “d” discourse (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2000) about the wellness initiative as a unit of data. The first piece of data was compared with the next piece of data. If both pieces of data aligned (i.e., they both reproduced a similar capital “D” discourse or underlying assumptions about that behavior), they were coded under the same coding category. For example, if a participant rationalized their resistance as “I just want to work out on my own,” and another stated “I want to choose when I work out,” they were coded under the larger category of autonomy. Conversely, if the pieces of data did not align, they were coded into separately defined categories. The next piece of data was then compared with the previously coded data and categories. This process continued until the entire data subset was coded resulting in 17 open codes (e.g., apathy, autonomy, work output benefits, cultural health silence, caretaking) and then we continued to code the remaining interviews separately through iterative comparison (Tracy, 2020).
Discourses Utilized to Defend Compliance or Resistance to MetFab Wellness Initiative.
Organizational Ventures Related to the MetFab Workplace Wellness Initiative.
Note: The turning points outlined in this table reflect participants descriptions of events and events described in archived organizational documents. The Discourses assigned are based on participants’ descriptions of the events.
Discourse Tracing MetFab’s Wellness Initiative
The authors employed LeGreco and Tracy’ (2009) four step process of discourse tracing and adapted it to the research question and the dataset. Wellness initiatives tend to be guided by the loudest voices in the room – those voices have a particular influence on how wellness is envisioned. By using discourse tracing, the analysis can trace the particular facets of d/Discourse(s) that became engendered as foundational wellness premises.
During step one, we defined the case by identifying the main rupture point in employee’s compliance with MetFab’s wellness initiative (e.g., low raises). For step two, we gathered data from a variety of sources that spanned the micro, meso (i.e., organizational) and macro (i.e., cultural) levels of discourse (e.g., participant interviews, observations, organizational documents). During this step, we ordered the data chronologically in relation to the wellness initiative events as described by participants (see Table 2). Next, we posed RQ2 (i.e., What organizational ventures shape the formation, appropriation, and/or rejection of d/Discourses related to the wellness initiatives?) to the chronological dataset. During this step, we “traced” the Discourses identified during our previous analysis through participants' descriptions of events (e.g., “the raise that they gave us here is like a slap on the face”). 5 We also considered the following questions: “Why were some organizational d/Discourses at first (re)produced and then rejected? What enabled workers to reject particular organizational d/Discourses?” We then theorized how concurrent d/Discourses reproduced in organizations often support differing worker identities and identification processes (Meisenbach & Kramer, 2014; Zanin & Bisel, 2018). Finally, during step four in addressing the theoretical conclusions, we consulted past literature on d/Discourse and blue-collar identity work and proposed the theoretical concept of parallel ideal worker identities.
Qualitative Rigor
Several steps were taken to ensure high-quality qualitative research. First, the authors employed a process of crystallization (Ellingson, 2009) by contrasting multiple member perspectives from a range of hierarchical levels (i.e., shop-floor employees, floor-managers, CEO) with multiple types of data (i.e., interviews, observations, and organizational documents/media). This data provided important contextualization to the meaning of discourse situated within the blue-collar context. Second, the first and third author engaged in a process of member checking (Lindlof & Taylor, 2019) by anonymizing a thematic summary of findings to Donny as well as providing access for employees to review their transcript. Third, the authors provide readers with a thick description (Geertz, 1973) of the cultural context in which these d/Discourses were produced. This thick description reveals the deeper contextually-bound, value-laden meanings of members’ everyday talk and is a hallmark of high-quality qualitative research (Tracy, 2020).
Findings
Analyses guided by RQ1 revealed that employees reproduced various discursive understandings of workplace wellness in their or others’ compliance (e.g., health silence, wellness coercion, and health work) and/or resistance to the workplace wellness initiative through real work and boundary encroachment d/Discourses. RQ2 assessed the MetFab organizational ventures that shaped the formation and appropriation of d/Discourses related to wellness initiatives, exposing discursive ruptures where the parallel ideal worker identities framework emerged. The following sections provide exemplar data for these findings.
Discourse of Wellness Program Compliance: Health Silence
A Discourse that participants articulated in relation to their compliance with the MetFab wellness initiative was health silence. Health silence is a cultural Discourse that presumes the discussion of and working on health and wellness as non-normative and stigmatized, relating to a distrust of organized medicine and lower health-literacy in rural and underserved U.S. communities (Berkman et al., 2011). In this blue-collar context, cultural health silence created a vacuum of health information, meaning organizational health d/Discourses served as the primary means of receiving health information at MetFab. Most participants stated they had little familiarity with wellness programs prior to MetFab and rarely spoke with family/friends about health/wellness.
The health silence Discourse enables unobtrusive control in blue-collar contexts, where workers are less likely to have formal higher education and health literacy (Ahmed & Bates, 2017). This vacuum of health information paired with unobtrusive control related to the overlap among ideal blue-collar worker and healthy worker identities in organizational Discourse. Exemplifying unobtrusive control, Sam, a welder, described his health identity shift after joining MetFab: “Before I actually got this job, exercise wasn’t my thing. It wasn’t [on] my mind... since then, the eating and the exercising, it makes you think healthier. You want to be healthy.” Sam demonstrated a cultural Discourse of health silence (e.g., “it wasn’t on my mind”) as well as a shift in his identity (e.g., “it makes you think healthier”). Similarly, Matt noted that the wellness discourse was helpful and that he had no reason to question the health information: I listen to [Donny]. He knows what he is saying because.... the research he talks about, and the way he presents it … it’s not like he is saying, ‘I’m a know it all and I know this.’ He tries to say, ‘Hey, here’s a cool fact that I know, check this out.’
Matt appreciated how health information was communicated, while also demonstrating the unobtrusive controlling qualities of this discourse (e.g., “I listen to Donny”). Stephen, a welder, appreciated the focus on nutrition and was thankful for the “special grains” MetFab used in their lunches. When asked more about what type of grain, Stephen was unsure, remarking that “it’s not like the ones you get at the store that are full of sugar and stuff.” Similarly, the unquestioned health discourse that functioned via unobtrusive control further exemplified in a fieldnote: After lunch, as we were putting our food trays up each employee grabbed a paper cup full of pills. We asked a worker what it was to which he replied ‘vitamins.’ We asked, ‘What kind?’ and the employee just smiled and shrugged, walking away as he threw the pills back and swallowed before walking back to the shop-floor (Fieldnotes).
The employee (and presumably others) complied without knowing the type of vitamins. The positive public image further solidified a health and wellness ethos among employees, functioning to silence doubt and limit dissent through an ideology of health legitimacy, as evidenced by the employees taking the vitamins without knowing their contents and simply trusting their employer.
Discourse of Wellness Program Compliance: Wellness Coercion
Another Discourse that participants reproduced in their compliance was the organizational discourse of wellness coercion. This Discourse assumes that employees’ wellness participation was enforceable through coercive practices related to pay. While powerholders claimed that certain aspects of the wellness initiative were not mandatory, many employees believed they were. For example, Aric explained, “You can get in trouble if you don’t [go]… or they [management] say it’s not [mandatory] but I think it is because they want you to go. If you don’t go, you don’t get raises...” This excerpt indicates the organizational d/Discourse from management as unobtrusively mandatory. Similarly, Stephen explained, “if you don’t go to work out every day, if you are not there 95%…you will only get 10% of your raise.” Xavier, a machinist, echoed: “…I have heard some of the guys at the shop say that some people have gotten fired because they don’t go workout and stuff.” Thus, the message was strategically ambiguous, functioning as implicit discursive control.
Donny’s caring demeanor was further questioned through employee accounts of his strict expectations with on-time attendance to the morning CrossFit session. Matt remembered running late 1 day and then being told he could not participate: I was 30 seconds late… I was just clocking in, I was trying to change clothes. And [he said], ‘You’re late.’ ‘It was just 30 seconds; you guys are barely stretching!’ And he was like, ‘No, just go to work.’ ‘Are you serious?’ He’s a fucking dick.
MetFab originally hired CrossFit coaches to conduct classes, though during the authors’ observations Donny coached the sessions. With the wellness initiative supposedly being employee and wellness focused, refusing Matt to participate communicated a more authoritative/disciplinary sentiment.
Employees also experienced wellness coercion in the cafeteria and shop-floor. MetFab provided snacks and lunch that purportedly enhanced employee focus and maintained proper blood-sugar levels. Certain drinks/foods were prohibited. Hector explained, “if they catch you with a Coke here, they’ll fire you.” Dan, a shipping manager, corroborated Hector’s assertion: “while we’re at work, we are not allowed to eat candies and Cokes.” MetFab employees had been socialized to understand the implicit rules. Donny admitted hiding healthier food in lunches: “we’ll sneak in good proteins and replace tortillas for the wheat tortillas.” Donny’s word “sneak” implied the workers would not make the right choice if left to them. Even though these restrictions were not explicit, the Discourse of wellness coercion associated with the wellness initiative was implicitly (re)produced throughout MetFab.
Discourse of Wellness Initiative Compliance: Health Work
Health work is an organizational Discourse that assumes the wellness initiative results in holistically positive psychological, physiological, and work-efficiency benefits. Therefore, “good workers” should engage in health work. In white-collar settings, a health work Discourse permeates much of organizational life as the struggle for betterment is often viewed as a universal good and dissent is eschewed (James & Zoller, 2018). The wellness initiative eventually became normalized at MetFab, and frontline workers themselves (re)produced a discourse of health work to sanction their co-workers’ resistance to wellness. For example, when asked why many frontline workers do not participate in CrossFit, Hector in fabrication, explained “…they are lazy…and they don’t care” thus conflating not participating in wellness initiatives with laziness.
Donny reinforced compliance with the wellness initiative by claiming employees who “eat well and move well” will also “think well.” Donny would not allow employees to choose their own form of exercise in lieu of CrossFit, indicating a lack of trust that employees would workout properly on their own. Matt, from the piping department, remembered a surprising response to his workout question: I asked Donny if I could not work-out here because I want to work-out at home. And I don’t want to be sore… I’m going to injure myself because I’m already sore…He was just like, “No, you have to do the workouts. Not have to do the workouts but I prefer you to do the CrossFit” … I’m like, “Okay?” I mean CrossFit isn’t the only best method of exercise.
Matt was athletic and enjoyed exercise, but not a CrossFit enthusiast. He had injury concerns in relation to CrossFit and lamented a lack of choice. By defining what types of exercise counted as health work, MetFab constructed a hierarchically ordered wellness ideology. The exclusive promotion of CrossFit confused employees like Matt, who questioned Donny’s purported wellness intent.
MetFab’s managers boasted of improved worker productivity and reduced absenteeism as a result of its wellness initiative. In a video honoring MetFab for its wellness initiative, a speaker claims MetFab productivity rates increased by “300 percent,” employees collectively lost over “3000 pounds,” and “zero safety accidents occurred after switching to [MetFab’s nutritional plan].” In another video, Donny identified CrossFit as having the most profound impact on their employees. Many of these anecdotes, both from MetFab and WHP literature (Berry et al., 2010), lack empirical data.
Discourse of Wellness Program Resistance: “Real” Work
Participants alluded to 2 d/Discourses that related to what constituted real work and employees’ boundary encroachment in regard to employee resistance. Corresponding to the blue-collar Discourse of workplace dignity (Lucas, 2011), a real work Discourse assumed greater value of the material labor of blue-collar work over health work. Given that employees perceived that their raises were tied to workout participation, it became increasingly unclear what work was most valued at MetFab. Brian explained, “[working out] is not mandatory, but it is part of your job.” Matt clarified “I don’t want to say [Donny] lost focus on [work] but I think he’s more fixated on the health [initiative] than he is on certain things in the work area.” Both Brian and Matt expressed ambiguity around what type of work was more valued.
Part of the resistance to the health initiative related to employees defending their identity as blue-collar workers already engaging in the “real work” of manual labor (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999). In this context, workers believed they should be compensated for their manual labor and craftsmanship, rather than wellness initiative participation. Timothy, a welder, explained: …a lot of [us] are getting tired because we do everything the company tells us. And then …the raise that they give us here is like a slap on the face. … and then a lot of people will look at it like, ‘Why am I going to do that if I’m not going to get the top of the raise?’
Timothy’s reference to “everything the company tells us,” encompasses both the health work of CrossFit and the blue-collar physical labor. In describing worker resistance to the wellness initiative, Timothy revealed how poor compensation—an undervaluing of blue-collar labor—is an identity threat (i.e., “like a slap in the face”). Timothy explained how the undervaluing of blue-collar labor cannot be remedied by requiring health work under the guise of a perk. He recalled a conversation with Donny: I said, ‘so I [need] to [go] buy a big box of Pampers [diapers] so I can take him to the daycare and take him home.’ I said, ‘the raise you gave me didn’t cover that. It didn’t even cover the gas coming to work!’
Timothy’s comment further indicates a disconnect between powerholders and employees that while the company emphasized its wellness program, the pay structure made providing basic essentials (e.g., “Pampers”) for family members difficult. This undervaluing of blue-collar labor and wages fostered the (re)production of a “real” work Discourse in resistance to the wellness initiative. To Timothy, the attention directed at the wellness initiative was misguided in that the amount of company investment skewed in favor of organizationally sponsored initiatives and not grounded in employee wellbeing (the economic hardships employees endured like buying diapers and gas).
Discourse of Wellness Program Resistance: Boundary Encroachment
Boundary encroachment was another cultural Discourse that employees utilized to defend resistance to the wellness initiative. Employees recognized their employer’s use of the wellness initiative to regulate health behaviors. Boundary encroachment rejects the notion that employee health regulation is within the domain of organizational control, given that this health regulation is beyond the boundaries of the employee-employer agreement. Boundary encroachment assumes employers lack the moral authority to regulate and prescribe employee wellness. Some employees reproduced this Discourse by emphasizing the need for employee choice in wellness initiatives. Hector broke it down: “they [employees] are grown men. They know how to make up their mind. They don’t need anybody.” Hector rejected the caretaking role with employee health (e.g., “grown men”), and demonstrated the underlying logic of employee autonomy with healthcare decision-making (e.g., “they know how to make up their mind”). Arthur, in material preparation, disclosed that policies obligating participation in the wellness initiative fostered employee resistance, given that employees should have autonomy to make wellness decisions. He explained, “…it should be their choice. ‘Okay, I want to go to work out today, I’m going to work out. If I don’t want to go, I ain’t going.’ I feel the same way sometimes.” Arthur saw the organization becoming dogmatic and coercive (e.g., being fired for drinking a Coke) and observed dwindling enthusiasm around wellness initiatives. When asked how stakeholders might encourage more participation, he suggested, “… make it voluntary… from what I’ve learned and what I’ve seen, if you let a person decide to do something, they’re more than willing to do it for you.”
Moreover, employees recognized that the wellness initiative, while framed as an employee benefit, was implemented to save the organization money. Aric explained how the wellness program was framed to employees: “The perks: there’s the workout, the chiropractor, masseuse and the lunches. … it saves you money too. You don’t have to buy lunch …On a month [we have saved] about $300.” While Aric recognized that the wellness program may have saved the organization and employees some money, it may have felt misguided in the face of financial hardships with which many blue-collar workers routinely struggle.
These decisions over employee benefits and resources were seen as boundary encroachment by employees. Aric revealed the impact of the boundary encroachment Discourse in relation to low pay by indicating many employees quit MetFab. He explained, “[other organizations] are paying more… and there are people who are like, ‘they give me more money and I don’t have to work out.’ It’s just what’s being said around the shop.” Aric highlighted employee assumptions about the boundaries among employers and employees such that these blue-collar workers have been hired to complete skilled labor tasks for the organization in return for fair wages, rather than upholding ‘obligatory’ workouts.
Discursive Ruptures and Parallel Ideal Worker Identities
After identifying the organizational and cultural Discourses associated with compliance or resistance to the wellness initiative, we created a timeline of major events related to the implementation of the MetFab wellness initiative and traced the Discourses that were made salient through these organizational events. Through this analysis, and guided by unobtrusive control theory, we propose the novel theoretical concept of parallel ideal worker identities, to explain (a) why there was little resistance to the wellness initiative for many years, and (b) why worker resistance eventually emerged in relation to boundary encroachment and “real work” Discourses. Parallel ideal worker identities are defined as two distinct, valued identities that highly-identified organizational members are expected to enact. In this case, ideal worker identities were: (a) “blue-collar worker” who enacts their organizational identity and maintains their dignity through hard-work from manual labor and craftsmanship, and (b) “healthy worker” who enacts their identity by subscribing to organizationally sponsored nutrition, exercise, and the promotion of routine company-sponsored wellness/health checks.
For many years, these parallel ideal worker identities were enacted and (re)produced through organizational Discourses, perpetuating the underlying premises associated with what it meant to be an ideal worker at MetFab. Upon reaching d/Discursive rupture points, however, it became clear that these identity constructs were in opposition. For example, when employees attempted to enact both parallel ideal worker identities and received an “embarrassingly” low wage increase, it exposed dissonance between identity constructs. Discursive ruptures enabled workers to draw upon cultural Discourses of boundary encroachment and “real work” to regain dignity in relation to their blue-collar identity. In turn, these Discourses created resistance to the wellness initiative because they made salient how the organization was leveraging the “healthy worker” identity over blue-collar worker identity (see Figure 1). Implications for how parallel ideal worker identities functions in other organizational contexts are discussed next. Parallel ideal worker identities at metfab in relation to organizational discourse tracing.
Discussion
The current study contributes to organizational wellness literature by (a) documenting d/Discourses blue-collar workers used to rationalize their compliance or resistance to workplace wellness initiatives, and (b) detailing the organizational ventures that shaped the discursive rupture points related to wellness initiatives. Our analysis of the discursive rupture points aided us in theorizing the novel theoretical concept of parallel ideal worker identities (i.e., two distinct, valued identities that highly-identified organizational members are expected to enact). The following section contextualizes these findings in relation to the theoretical value within organizational identity and workplace wellness literature and practical value within workplace wellness.
Parallel Ideal Worker Identities
We introduce the theoretical construct of parallel ideal worker identities to make those connections to d/Discourse, identity, and wellness more apparent. Managerialist health promotion has become a means to impose wellness ideology as normative organizational practice (Dailey et al., 2018; Dale & Burrell, 2014; Kelly et al., 2007; Zoller, 2003). The workplace wellness discourse flourishes as neoliberal ideals of self-improvement and self-regulation posit that one’s body is the medium through which socially-constructed notions of wellness are communicated and evaluated. Without an adequate model that delineates why and how wellness initiatives may not align with worker identities, the normalization of workplace wellness initiatives further encroach into traditionally non-work aspects of employee lives (Fleming, 2014). The parallel ideal worker identity model can be helpful in promoting dialogue around perceived incongruencies between managerialist expectations and employee wellness. The model affords the opportunity to eschew the ‘anything that promotes health is a good thing’ mantra and allow for a more empirical reckoning of disparate ideologies that typically remain latent.
In the present study, employees who did not participate in the wellness initiative were labeled “lazy” or “just not caring” about their health, furthering an in-group/out-group wellness bias (Dale & Burrell, 2014; James & Zoller, 2018). Because unobtrusive control theory posits that organizational members are socialized to understand organizational premises through veteran member d/Discourse (Bisel et al., 2007), parallel ideal worker identities were exposed in the decisions and actions members demonstrated in their identification and consubstantiality with the collective organization. Recent research has complicated unobtrusive control theory by demonstrating that members have a variety of—at times conflicting—organizational premises to draw upon in order to act and therefore manage their identity (e.g., Zanin & Bisel, 2018). Similarly, Kuhn (2006) explained “because social practices… are marked by varied personal, organizational, and social interest, a multiplicity of discursive resources are likely to be available for identity regulation and identity work” (p. 1342). While Kuhn and others have attempted to address how the organization of these discursive resources affect identity work, the lack of materiality in d/Discourse work and examining how discursive resources influence employee perceptions of wellness remains under-developed. In the current case, the materiality of blue-collar work and the well-documented connections to discursive resources made those connections clearer. LeGreco and Tracy’s (2009) discourse tracing analysis was a useful method in detailing these connections, given that discourse tracing reveals how organizational premises shift over time through member d/Discourse and events that function as discursive ruptures (e.g., low raises for non-ideal healthy workers).
As evident in Figure 1, when critical events challenged d/Discursive norms, a divide became apparent between a managerially constructed “healthy” worker identity and the idealized understandings of blue-collar worker identities. In the current case, blue-collar workers, whose positive identity is preserved through performances of hard work, were not being compensated for these performances, making a rupture among ideal worker identities more apparent. As a result of linking compensation to wellness initiative participation, organizational powerholders communicated the organizational premise that ideal workers were healthy workers, regardless of their hard work on the shop-floor. It is precisely these premises and discursive resources that foster multiple ideal worker identities. The construct of parallel ideal worker identities should be viewed as a map that plots potential discursive ruptures between the idealized healthy worker and the idealized blue-collar worker identities to explore latent points of dissonance. In other words, examining contradictory points of identity construction may help address gaps that inhibit either idealized identity from being fully embraced.
Blue-collar workers enact their hard-working, consenting ethos as an identity-regulation performance (Gibson & Papa, 2000). As our analysis revealed, employees were largely complimentary of the prospect of wellness at work until it began to affect compensation – exposing a disconnect in the idealized identities without a common discursive resource to hold in tension. Without a discursive resource to bond disparate idealized identities together, these two competing ideal work self and ideal healthy work self may remain mutually exclusive, even if starting off seemingly complimentary. Wieland (2010) also found participants articulating multiple ideal selves around ideas of workplace deliverables and wellbeing. However, in the context of her study, a white-collar Swedish organization, participants articulated two idealized identities and could reconcile the unattainability of each extreme idealization because of the Swedish cultural value of lagom. Used as a discursive resource (Kuhn, 2009), the Swedish humanistic approach to lagom is translated loosely to ‘just the right amount’ that emphasizes balance–something that has not necessarily translated to the U.S., much less to blue-collar labor.
With blue-collar workers not knowing much about CrossFit or its nutritional/lifestyle components, MetFab’s idealized health worker was a novel discursive resource. Employees lacked the discursive resources to make sense of the WHP outside of work, and instead drew upon the more static identity characteristics used to regulate blue-collar identity. Thus, our study suggests that if workplace wellness campaigns are to transition to whole-person, contextually appropriate designs, the approach must link to commensurable goals. In other words, if a blue-collar worker takes pride in their work, in what ways can a wellness initiative compliment it? The introduction of the chiropractor at MetFab to adjust a sore back or hips before hitting the shop-floor seemed practical and we did not hear much resistance to chiropractor adjustments; some even indicated they looked forward to it. However, doing CrossFit before metal-fabrication was viewed as more of a hindrance. Eating a prescribed healthier meal with its benefits being anecdotally discussed also may have been appealing, but the financial reality of purchasing more expensive foods while earning a meager paycheck further exposed material disconnects.
Examining points of dissonance became critical in the present study. Those contradictions, however, were not made readily available until various d/Discourses were understood in context, exposing juxtapositions. It was at those intersections that Wieland (2010) discussed the connectedness of identity work and d/Discourses that inform a scripted, dramaturgical identity performance. Discourse tracing helped point to the larger disconnects where more resistance became evident as the control system moved back from unobtrusive to more explicit, obtrusive forms of control. In Figure 1, the parallel trajectory fractured when organizational events shifted workers’ perceptions of the caring wellness initiative to a more coercive means. As a result, resistant Discourses of boundary encroachment and “real work” emerged and were juxtaposed with a coercive understanding of health work. It was at this intersection—the ideal worker identity rupture—where the wellness initiative may have given workers pause. It was only after the wellness initiative began to contradict their understanding of blue-collar work that privileged the materiality of blue-collar identity/work-ethic over the “healthy” worker identity that a disconnect became apparent. Further complicating blue-collar wellness initiatives are the ways that blue-collar workers may engage in blue-collar industries to eschew a perceived ‘feminization’ of white-collar work and reclaim a perceived masculinization of work (Ashcraft & Flores, 2003), offering other potential ruptures in the identity-regulation process. Having exposed these discursive rupture points and the development of the parallel identity constructs, our study also pointed to a consequence of the blue-collar wellness initiative in having a role in (re)creating cultural health silence.
Cultural Health Silence
The second contribution of the present study describes a cultural health silence that emerged as the relationship between diversity and wellness went largely ignored. MetFab employees were predominately male and Latinx, two identity characteristics that are inherently important when considering how organizational powerholders might co-construct organizational wellness. Blue-collar workers are already less likely to participate in workplace wellness compared to the white-collar counterparts (Toker et al., 2015), and may perceive wellness initiatives as contradictory to a perceived macho blue-collar work culture (Scott, 2007). The implementation of CrossFit and other ambitious wellness endeavors may do more to further promote a divide rather than opening dialogue to whole-person models of wellness and health. Sensationalized wellness endeavors make clear the discrepancies between socio-material realities for blue-collar workers and the idealized wellness Discourse that may gloss over other identity factors – something that may disproportionally affect blue-collar workers. As uncovered during the COVID-19 pandemic with vaccine hesitancy, building trust in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities to promote wellbeing requires relationship building and “actively listening to others’ stories and ensuring that all partners are provided an opportunity to articulate the challenges” (Quinn & Andrasik, 2021, p. 99). Without listening and co-constructing wellness, WHPs may only continue to promote dominant health ideologies.
With the shift to blue-collar wellness, traditional cultural values and approaches to health were rendered invisible, particularly on MetFab’s shop-floor. Food is communicative and a main staple of culture (Dougherty, 2011). MetFab’s leadership may not have designed culturally appropriate nutrition solutions. For example, one shop-floor worker mentioned explaining to his wife about different types of flour to use when making tortillas, but with bleached flour having a far-cheaper price tag than ‘preferred’ alternatives like almond-flour, workers may have felt like it was too expensive to make ‘healthier’ choices.
Furthermore, socio-cultural wellness Discourses, often predicated on Western understandings of health, nutrition, and wellness, further marginalize already marginalized groups. One popular diet that many CrossFit enthusiasts advocate for is the Paleolithic diet. This diet, along with diets similar to the one prescribed at MetFab, 5 often function as universal cures to wellness woes, but at the same time risk “engender[ing] forms of neoliberal food classism that appeal to affluent groups, who often possess privileged and nuanced cultural capital, while recreating a marginalized, racialized divide that characterizes consumption practices as symbolic distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ eaters” (Reeves, 2017, p. 5). Westernized wellness is then (re)appropriated and normalized throughout organizations via managerialist practice and through employee socialization. As evidenced in our study, managerialist expectations continued to have a profound effect on employees inside the organization and beyond.
The present study highlighted how a wellness initiative parades itself as a wolf in sheep’s clothing – similar to wellness campaigns in other organizational contexts (Dailey & Zhu, 2017). These Discourses have immunity through their rhetorical appeal to neoliberal ideals of self-regulation and self-responsibility (Cederström & Spicer, 2015; James & Gill, 2018). The wellness Discourse then is hidden in plain sight making its attempts at homogenizing understandings of wellness particularly concerning for growing diverse workforces.
Practical Implications
The following section provides practical recommendations for organizational stakeholders who aim to promote worker wellness within their organizations. While power imbalances and privacy concerns may still be present in any workplace wellness program, creating a commitment to employee health by establishing non-punitive structures is essential. This commitment can be cultivated through organizational transparency and clear expectations for positive worker identity enactments. In the current study, CrossFit sessions were not explicitly mandated. However, employees believed if they did not participate their paychecks would be affected. This use of strategic ambiguity fostered perceptions of management manipulation. Other studies too have emphasized how employees and managers struggle to make sense of mandatory versus preferred wellness program participation (James & Zoller, 2018). While implicit messaging may at first seem less paternalistic or controlling, it may further contribute to uncertainty and worker resentment.
Moreover, co-constructed wellness plans that receive input from all levels of an organization would likely establish worker buy-in and foster a culture of wellness, rather than (re)enforce unobtrusive control. Dailey and Zhu (2017) noted that an investment in getting to know worker health identities could lead to wellness programs having a variety of features, rather than a one-size-fits-all model. In the context of the present study, adding a cultural and context specific focus may also contribute to employees’ commitment and could promote a more sustainable wellness program. Thus, rather than focusing on employee participation in wellness programs, endeavoring to generate participation in the early-development of the wellness philosophy would be a critical first step.
Finally, identity work is often relegated to the depths of the theoretical, making it difficult to know what employers and employees can do about it. Scholars have begun suggesting ways that reflexive practice (Wieland, 2010), social-wellness paradigms (Farrell & Geist-Martin, 2005), along with the use of directed questions like “who am I,” may help further expose the struggle between identity tensions (Richardson & James, 2017). Asking specific questions as a co-constructive dialogic process may promote transparency and afford the opportunity to learn about the unique needs of diverse workforces.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
As is the case with all empirical research, this study has several limitations. The present study examined just one blue-collar facility, and findings should be applied to other contexts with care. A longer, sustained time on-site may have offered other perspectives on the evolution of the wellness initiatives, but after a discussion with management about findings and expressing an interest in continued study, MetFab officials balked at prolonged engagement. Though we are appreciative of the time and access at MetFab, speaking with more employees would have helped develop further insight, though not possible because of the interdependent nature of some tasks/functions on the shop-floor. Future research could examine the ways that discursive ruptures ultimately pit workplace wellness programs at odds with other organizational responsibilities. If wellness does not belong in the organization, examining the disconnects between worker identities and healthy identities could help point to crucial moments where disparate ideologies clash. Because functionalist WHP perspectives tend to sensationalize organizational wellness benefits, more critical research that challenges the relationship between wellness and work, from an organizational identity perspective, may finally get to more individualized and culturally appropriate understandings about the role of wellness at work.
Conclusion
This study provides an analysis of workplace wellness initiatives at a blue-collar organization. We have focused on the nuanced ways that d/Discourses operated in rationalizing employee compliance and resistance to the wellness initiatives. Workplace wellness may frequently ‘sound good’ and is often romanticized as indicative of caring for employees. Few question ‘being more healthy’ as problematic, but unless understood against the backdrop of worker identity, context, and d/Discourse, we may only be further engendering unrealistic and, in some cases, incommensurable idealized identities. We see continued value in using discourse tracing as a map in helping guide conversations and deciphering the complicated relationships between worker identity, discourse, and wellness.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Drs. Dan Lair, Katie Sullivan, and Heather Zoller for their feedback on earlier drafts of this paper, as well as the tremendously helpful feedback from the anonymous reviewers and editor.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Metropolitan State University of Denver (College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Faculty Research Gramt).
