Favouritism At The Workplace Is Much Like A Virus

“Leaders who practice favouritism in the workplace have no chance to build a culture of trust.” – Robert Whipple.

Do you also have a co-worker who’s always given extra leaves, extra time and extra breaks?

In all probability, the Answer Is Yes !

With a proliferation of industries, startups, digital eco-systems and more, favouritism in corporate world has assumed new meaning…

A survey conducted by Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business stated that approximately 92 per cent of senior leaders, supervisors, managers, team leaders have played favouritism in employee promotions.

An astonishing 84 per cent of the respondents accepted practising favouritism.

With this constantly increasing practice of favouritism, Pune365 speaks to company owners and citizens to gauge their view.

There is no place where favouritism is not practised, be it a college or a big multinational. It is human nature, to give extra to who they like. It is very tough to work in such an environment, yet, with the growing unemployment, one barely has a choice says, Nishant Pandit, Businessman.

Most bosses fail to understand that favouritism is harming the company.

If the company hires friends, family members or prioritises one above the other, then it is bound to affect the productivity and the environment.

To overcome such favouritism at the workplace, the victim should always adhere to punctuality, performance and possess all the new skills required in the field. Most favourite employees may not be able to handle the work that well and finally, no company will risk their overall success for one or two people.

Pandit opines, “From the business owners perspective, everyone in the organisation should be treated fairly and equally No friend or family relationship should be entertained in the organisation.

if you do have a manger or leader who is biased, it is best to stop him then and there!

It destroys the trust of the employees and has a very negative impact on the team. The effects go beyond gossip, jealousy and hatred, leading to sub-standard performance.”

Gracy Fernandes, HR manager says, “It is in the air of corporates and nothing can be changed around it.

It starts with doing extra work for their favourite one or lenient attitude while dealing with them.

We have experienced it many times when team leaders and supervisors ask for unending favours of holidays and promotions for their favourite ones.

Promotions are totally dependent on seniors, as we can only promote basis the appraisal reports submitted to us in HR. Most of the time, we’re aware of the partiality happening on the floor and often often we fail to do justice to the deserving ones. It’s important that you don’t compare employees when you are doing an appraisal but HR and employers often fall into that trap regardless.

Everyone likes to work with their friend, but it is very inappropriate to favour your friend or loved one, when they’re not even capable of handling the responsibilities.

Leaders have to practice self-realisation more than anything else, Gracy added.

It is similar to being the teacher’s pet in school. To be a favourite, you need to agree and accept everything and anything in regards to be their favourite one, says Tammana Mulay, Software professional.

I have been working with a company for over a year now, but I have always been a victim of favouritism.

I don’t understand the reason to favour one and burden the other with work. We both have same salaries, however, am the only one who’s not allowed to leave even a minute before my work timings and on the other hand, I have never noticed her completing even seven hours at work.

The work environment is very depressing to me, and to other employees as well. Favouritism is one of the major reason for the depression among the employees.

It has often happened that favourite employees get to work on higher visibility projects and the capable ones are left with data entry work. It is why so many are now looking for ways to be assertive in the workplace to break out of this unfair blocking of their skills.

Mulay further added, that one can’t agree like a donkey and be all ‘sugar-n-honey’ to get things done, or get good projects to work on. However, switching jobs is not the solution to the problem, first, it hampers your image and CV and second, the same situation is prevalent everywhere.

Rather deal with it, a promotion will extend for a year or two but you’ll definitely get promoted and experience you get with working such managers, makes you a better person and enhances your capability of dealing with such bosses…

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#All views expressed in this article are those of the individual respondents and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.