Dealing with Favoritism in the Workplace
One of the most de-motivating factors at any workplace is favoritism. Favoritism means and refers to the circumstances when a worker seems to have been given a better offer or treatment than others for reasons other than the performance of an assigned work.
The most common form of favoritism that gets noticed is the disparity in salary or perks. The person being favored might be promoted before it was really due, without giving any consideration to the contributions made by others for doing the same or a similar job. Another very common form of favoritism is to give some kind of uncalled for degree of freedom, like coming or leaving the office during working hours.
To most other personnel it might appear that a particular employee is being given a preferential treatment, for no evident reason. These workers feel underprivileged and conclude that favoritism has more to do with knowing the right person or keeping in good humor a select band of higher-ups rather than professional competence and abilities.
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Favoritism may occur in almost any office, irrespective of its size, howsoever large or small. Seeing favoritism in the workplace can be one of the most de-motivating things you might experience. Your reaction to favoritism might depend upon:
- How deliberate it may be.
- Can it be proved in a court of law?
-And the track record of your company in handling such cases.
Before you decide to make public your complaint you should think about the possible consequences. It is known that whistleblowers are increasingly being offered better means of protection in certain countries. Nevertheless, the biggest and the toughest part are to assess if your complaint will hold ground in a court of law. It is difficult to imagine the grief it might cause if it fails to hold in court.
If you are being a witness to favoritism on grounds of race, sex or age, consider before hand if you’ll have enough material to substantiate your complaint in court! Would it be worthwhile to seek legal opinion before hand?
You might question if it is worth a fight in your present job. You may not like to prolong your association with a company that accepts favoritism. May be, you would get a better job in some other company.
Depending on the prevalent circumstances you may find it a hard task to convince others to your way of judgments.
You should be aware that most of the companies have devised definite means and systems for reporting and examining of such cases. In the first place you should explore the options with the human resource department of your company and educate yourself on the policies of the company in this regard. Probably, you won’t be required to proceed further!
