Favouritism does occur in one form or another in the workplace. How then does it affect relationships between colleagues? It can lead to feelings of anger, envy or jealousy. Especially for those who believe that they are competent, hard-workers. We can expect to see this translated into reactions such as defensiveness should mistakes be made, withholding of information in order to retain some aspect of power, frequent arguments, as well as total lack of effective communication. At the extreme, it may appear that although individuals are part of a team, they are in reality only working for themselves! Such situations will most probably lead to a stifling work environment; distrust and lack of creativity will be witnessed. Members of favourite groups (also known as the in-group) will come to despise the out-group for their suggested “lack of abilities” or other negativities, whilst the out-group will despise the in-group for being favoured and will lose self-esteem. Given the loss of esteem, the out-group may even come to believe and demonstrate that it is ineffective or incompetent and thus a self-fulfilling prophesy is established and hard-evidence is fed back to the in-group. It’s obviously important to avoid such situations in organisations. Events that highlight each person’s merits and contribution to the overall organisational objectives will assist in this. Also, a mature attitude by each employee…the understanding that in order for the team to work well, each person must cooperate and contribute equally. Such an environment must be promoted by the organisation’s hierarchy in order to be fully effective. Esteemed Professor of Management, Robert Veccio has suggested a plan for dealing with favouritism and envy and this plan includes elements such as paying attention to emotional maturity when selecting employees as well as encouraging open communication and implementing incentive systems that reward cooperation.

Case studies illustrating favouritism at work…

Case Study One: Personal Favouritism

Ling was an exceptional employee in the sales team of a banking corporation in Singapore. Her boss, Ivy, had enjoyed their first conversation and from the start had decided that Ling was extremely bright. Ivy gave Ling more work than the others on the team because she felt that Ling was more able to cope. At the same time, Ling was showered with praise for her achievements and attitude. Other members of the team felt cheated and became despondent towards Ling. Ling herself felt uncomfortable, as well as unfairly overworked. The end result was that the performance of the other members of the team declined along with morale and Ling ultimately gave her notice and took her exceptional skills elsewhere. Overall, a costly situation for the organisation, resulting in not only the necessity to recruit another exceptional member of staff, but also the need to notice the contributions of the other team members and rapidly improve morale.

Case Study Two: In-group/Out Group Favouritism

Lee was in charge of two interdependent teams in the Singapore regional office of a multi-national manufacturing company. As human resource manager, Lee had selected one team himself with simple recommendation from his assistants. The other team however were selected entirely by the overseas head office with little input from Lee. From day one, Lee felt uncertain about the decisions made by his head office as well as somewhat unhappy that he had not been more involved in the selection decisions. Lee continued to churn this over and without realising it, distanced himself from the second team. His “chosen” team noticed this and started to speak of the other team as though they were incompetent. This affected the performance of both teams. Communication became poor and many mistakes were made. Some aspects of the work were done twice, whilst others were not done at all. Head office suggested a communication course. In reality though, it was Lee’s perceptions, attitude and favouritism that had led to this situation. Team-building would have been a more appropriate resolution. Here the members of each team may learn what each team does and about their mutual competencies. Although the situation is recoverable, again, it is costly to do this and there has been great loss up to this point both in terms of morale, misunderstanding and work errors.

Author : Dr. Graham Tyler
http://www.psyasia.com/