Image, Industry, and Ink: Communication of Tattoo Policies by Human Resource Professionals.

Tattoos historically have been considered taboo and viewed as unprofessional in workplace environments. However, tattoos are increasing in frequency as an avenue of self-expression, forcing organizations to create and enforce policies about tattoo displays. Human Resource (HR) professionals are on the front lines of enforcing organizational policies, such as tattoo visibility, regardless of their personal agreement with organizational values or policy. This qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews with seven HR professionals to understand policy communication related to tattoos and how value dissonance influences communication. Findings indicate that HR professionals informally and formally engage in unique policy enforcement communication tactics that evoke organizational and personal values through hypotheticals (authority), throwing the book down (security), and modeling (conformity). HR professionals who experience value dissonance use additional tactics including identification (benevolence) and changing the policy (self-direction). When HR professional's values align with perceived organizational values, they are less likely to experience value dissonance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]