Favoritism is one common tread with runs through every one of us. It creates the microsystem within the work group which defines how the actual work is done. This is more specific to people involved, with role of the employee in the group defining the impact it carries varies. Every person is affected by it – in doing it and being at the receiving end of it. Favoritism is a natural process and is part of our day to day life. We have preferences for almost everything –be it related to food, clothes, cars and people. It is almost instinctive that we seek people who have similar interests and background. In work place scenarios – the practice is rampant – from harmless preferences based on thing of recreation to negative impacting preference based on religion, cast, and gender. There is one generic fabric of the organization and within it there is subsystem of various business units. People who drive these BU’ s and their approach and mindset drives delivery within the BU. For employee working in same organization, the experience can be very different depending upon the BU, which he is part of. Often employees discuss during breaks, about the Pro and Con of working in a particular BU. For example, good working conditions in any particular BU within the company spread through word of mouth and people applying for job in the company want to specifically join that delivery group. Favoritism - evil within The disadvantages of favoritism are well documented and almost everywhere it is evident. All the goodwill generated by company gets washed away if the Manager (who is pivotal in team) is known for favoritism. For team members, that particular person is synonym with company and people start blaming company for everything that goes wrong with them even though particular person is the issue. First causality is performance, as team believes that it is not the criteria used for performance evaluation. The delivery quality suffers and eventually product delivered to customer is not as per expectations. This has financial implications. Management finds it tough to find answers. For them everything is in place – however this under current is not accounted for. Second causality is good environment within team can vitiated. It breeds further favoritism. Favorite person uses his / her clout to get his way through his peers. Nothing works. There are no logical explanations and team is always on the edge.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 08:29:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015