Having to work for a biased manager is the most unfortunate situation for an employee. It can affect your self-esteem, motivation and productivity.
Reasons for managers unjustly treating one employee better than another, range from unconscious bias to explicit prejudice. If you are in this uncomfortable situation, seek support and weigh your options. Problems with a biased manager may be resolved informally through the communication of expectations and resolving communication gaps.
Formal remedies are also available if you are experiencing discriminatory treatment. Favouritism due to biases at work is when someone in a leadership position shows excessive and unjustifiable favour for certain employees over others. Doesn’t this sound familiar to you?. This can mean that they treat them better, consider them over others for promotions, overlook their mistakes or offer them more responsibilities not based on their capability. Remember that it’s only favouritism if there’s no performance-related justification for the preferential treatment. If someone receives a promotion because they consistently produce better results, then they deserve it.
One of the most common types of bias in the workplace is favouring employees for reasons other than pure job performance. Favouritism occurs when a biased manager gravitates to certain personality types, such as extroverts who are allowed to take control of business activities and ignore everyone else.
A boss may also show favouritism towards those who are from the same school, same geographical area, share similar hobbies, religious beliefs or political affiliation. Throughout your career, you may encounter favouritism at your workplace.
Though we think that it’s a Sri Lankan thing, take it from me it happens everywhere in the world. I’m saying this with my over 30 years of work life with multinationals covering regional and global responsibilities. If you witness or suspect that there’s favouritism at your place of work, there are several steps you can take to address the issue.
Important step
The first and most important step is to understand whether the behaviour you have witnessed is evidence of preferential treatment. If a particular employee consistently works hard, beats deadlines and exceeds performance targets, they are naturally going to receive favourable treatment because they have earned it.
Supervisors are more likely to forgive such an individual for the occasional mistake, as their overall contributions are positive. Conversely, a manager may know that a particular employee is going through some personal issues and may choose to be lenient.
The most important thing is to avoid making a hasty conclusion. Those who display favouritism almost always do so consistently, with benefits given unrelated to performance. If the actions of a manager make you suspect favouritism, ask about their justification.
It may be that there were factors of which you weren’t aware. However, if they are consistently unable to justify their actions, it’s likely to be favouritism. It’s very important to be careful with any such claims, as discrimination in the workplace is a serious issue.
Since favouritism is often unintentional, you ought to take the time to consider your actions in the workplace. Think about whether you treat your friends at work better than those with whom you’re less friendly.
If you’ve been in a position to recommend someone for promotion or a bonus, consider: what are your criteria for selecting them? Did anyone object to your choice? Conversely, you might want to consider if you’re the recipient of favouritism.
Consider if you have a particularly friendly relationship with your supervisor? Have you been promoted over more qualified and experienced candidates? Even if you haven’t explicitly asked for better treatment, your relationship with a supervisor may inadvertently cause them to treat you preferentially.
Favouritism at work comes in many forms, and they aren’t all easy to spot. You may notice a team leader spending a lot of time with a particular employee during tea or lunch breaks.
Workplace friendships can improve morale and make the workplace more enjoyable for everyone. But they can also lessen professionalism at work. Rather than taking work commitments seriously, leaders, coworkers, and favoured employees may feel empowered to dedicate company time to personal tasks.
Examples include; dismissing employee violations and wrongdoings, unfair distribution of tasks, unfair access to mentoring and extra guidance, unbalanced recognition, selective feedback and suggestions, taking sides, self-serving promotions, unfair reprimands, uneven salary raises and benefits
Consequences
Even small instances of favouritism can impact an entire organisation. Higher turnover rates, lack of advancement and employee burnout. Employees who notice managers playing favourites might feel the urge to work harder to catch their attention.
If they want the benefits of being favoured, they might put in extra hours, take on more projects, or try to be someone they aren’t. This unnecessary effort can lead to burnout at work. When employees see their coworkers advance into better positions with higher pay, they may lose faith in the management team.
This is especially true if the said coworker doesn’t have the skills to justify a promotion. This can lead to less respect between leaders and workers, and on the other hand, employees can put too much energy into courting their superiors.
How to prevent favouritism as an employee:
Favouritism might not seem serious at first, but it can create a cycle of distrust in the workplace and ultimately impede growth — for employees and organisations as a whole.
Here are some steps you can take as an employee to fight favouritism within your workplace. Be honest with yourself about the root of the problem. Are other employees getting special treatment, or could your work performance improve? Start with some self-reflection.
Talk to your human resources department when you think favouritism is negatively impacting your work, team dynamics, and growth opportunities, reach out to HR. You don’t have to make a formal complaint, but making them aware of the situation can help reduce its impact.
Speak up If you feel like your leaders favour others over you, show them why you’re a valuable employee. Stand up for your ideas, give feedback to your boss, and be open about how favouritism impacts you. And if the work culture doesn’t change, it might be time to look for an organization where you can continue to grow.
End favouritism
Favouritism poses serious threats to the health of an organisation, and as a manager, it’s your job to spot and prevent it. If untreated, you risk losing important talent and pushing productivity down.
Take extra measures to keep bias out of important decision-making by using metrics rather than emotions to track employee performance. Make it clear that your leadership team won’t tolerate biasness and favouritism. It costs the business a huge amount of money.
You can survey employees about favouritism in the workplace to evaluate how different departments can address the problem. Create space for workers to speak up when they notice unfair decisions and dynamics. It’s natural for leaders and employees to become friends.
But workers and leaders alike should learn how to differentiate between positive professional relationships and destructive team hierarchies. Favouritism is ultimately counterproductive. It squashes morale and productivity, stagnates growth, and puts employees and organisations at risk.
If you’re struggling with favouritism in the workplace, study and learn about common forms of favouritism, its consequences, and how to combat them. Avoiding favouritism and being honest about employee performance will help you build an equitable workplace.
