Think everyone needs to be treated equally? It seems that playing favourites amongst employees may not be so bad after all.
Ditch the impartiality towards all team members and start showing preferential treatment towards your employees, a new study has found.
Authored by the University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business, the study found that people are more likely to experience greater self-esteem, adherence to workplace norms, and performance of tasks which benefit the group if a leader gives preferential treatment towards them as compared to others in a team.
Adhering to the belief that everyone should be treated equally in a team could appear to be “a disincentive for workers who would otherwise go above and beyond on behalf of the team with a little bit of extra attention,” mentioned the study’s co-author Professor Karl Aquino.
“The key is to find the right balance – treat everyone reasonably well, but treat those whose work counts most or who have been most productive just a little bit better,” he advised bosses.
He suggests that managers take a middle ground approach to sustain high productivity amongst the star players, which also avoids creating envy in the other non-star workers.
The study was co-authored by Aquino and Professors Stefan Thau and Madan Pillutla of the London Business School, Christian Troster of the Kuhne Logistics University and David Cremer of Erasmus University. It conducted a series of experiments on 357 working people and an experiment done on 41 students.
