Minimising Employee Favoritism: HRM Strategies & Workplace Analysis

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of employee favoritism, examining its impact on workplace dynamics, employee morale, and organizational performance. It reviews existing literature highlighting the negative consequences of favoritism, including decreased job satisfaction, increased stress, and potential conflicts among employees. The essay also explores how favoritism can lead to biased decision-making and hinder overall productivity. Furthermore, it offers practical recommendations for firms and managers to minimize favoritism, such as fostering open communication, implementing unbiased evaluation processes, and promoting transparency in hiring and promotion decisions. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of impartial mediators and unbiased supervisors to create a fair and equitable work environment. Desklib offers a platform to explore similar essays and solved assignments for students.

MINIMISING EMPLOYEE FAVORITISM
Introduction
Favoritism implies to the fact that a particular person is bestowed a special privilege, not
just because of being the best in the profession, rather because of few other irrelevant
qualifications. It has three aspects: Nepotism, cronyism and then patronage. In today’s
time favoritism has become a vital subject as firms both private as well as governmental
have become worried about the ethical issues within the firms (Arya & Glover, 2003).
Background
Favoritism means unfair treatment within the firm. When favoritism takes place favored
persons are awarded privileges, while others (the non-favored ones) are punished or
neglected. There exists several behaviors and attitudes in the firms that are actually legal
yet are in reality examples of implicit favoritism. For example, managers behave well
towards favored employee by giving them best trainings and putting them into favored
groups, making optimistic assessments regarding them, backing up their advancements
and also appreciating them. On the other side, favoritism depicted by managers reinforces
the decrease in of employee’s morale and motivation that is not being treated properly or
is being neglected by the manger. This takes place just because the staffs assess
themselves on the basis of on the way they are actually perceived within their groups
(Bramoulle & Goyal, 2009).
Literature review
Favoritism is apparently an ethical issue for firms all over the globe. Several researchers
have argued that favoritism affects employees negatively on many grounds. As staffs
may not have relevant idea and knowledge as well as skills, they might not be able to
perform as good as the qualified staffs. This hampers the fairness within the firm and
even motivation plus harmony gets affected while inculcating inefficiency along with
unsatisfactory development and training activities. Conflict might arise amid workers
who are already within the job and the new employees who are hired due to kinship tie-
up (Garicano, Palacios-Huerta & Prendergast, 2001). Such elements might also end up in

staffs quitting the job and later result into negative comment of the customers, friends,
colleagues or others. This could also result in major harm to the functioning and image of
the firm. Nepotism being a part of favoritism causes anomie regarding maintenance of
effectiveness, distrust within the social ground, absurdity and normlessness. It also
prevents the firm from carrying a particular, independent and wider identity from the
family. When any inequality takes place in the firm, staffs think that they work in an
unfair place and their level of trust towards the firm decreases, resulting to decrease in
level of job satisfaction and motivation thereby affecting firm’s performance in negative
way. Favoritism towards relatives working in same firm is one situation of altruism, yet
its results are greatly controversial (Kudamatsu, 2009).
Miller and LE Breton-mMiller in 2006 have mentioned optimistic effects of choosing
own family member as top executive for reason that it might induce greater motivation.
Moreover, Perez-Gonzalez in the year 2006 have found that CEO’s chosen from within
the family tends to achieve this post eight years earlier than average. Therefore, a
decision on basis of relationship or kinship violates all the fairness principles thereby
making all the other agents within the firm in feel differentiated and demoralized as well
(Morimoto, 1955).
The distributive theory given by Homans in 1961 and its derivative equality theory by
Adams in 1965 recommends that unflavored staffs attaining unfairness and inequalities
might engage themselves in some destructive behavior. Such staffs might also respond by
not proving appropriate work, enhancing absenteeism, job quitting, stealing and also
strikes and lockouts. There exists a bipolar staff profile that distrusts each other, as close
as well as distant to management in the firm where favoritism is widespread.
Performance of staffs gets negatively affected as there exists no communication, like
coordinated work or sharing of data and information in firms prevailing favoritism
(Mujtaba & Sims, 2010).
Kwon in the year 2006 built a model of one principle and two agents. As per favoritism is
seen as one amongst most vital sources of conflict within the firms as well as stress
within staffs. It is even seen as a base and a result of politics as well as power struggles

within firm. As a result, favoritism ends up to incompetent decisions and at time even
loss of motivation plus productivity. A study undertaken by Araslı et al., in 2006 some
300 hotel staffs in Northern Cyprus found that nepotism has a vital negative impact upon
human resource management, intentions of job quitting, job satisfaction, job satisfaction,
and also bad buzzes. They also found that HRM applies a major optimistic effect upon
level of job satisfaction. Further Araslı and Tumer conducted a study in the year 2008
with 600 bank staffs where they found that favoritism creates stress in the job and at
place of work thereby increasing disappointment of employees regarding their firm.
Favoritism tends to have the highest negative impact on the job stress (Robin,
Rusinowska & Villeval, 2012).
Brandts and Sola in 2010 studied 430 samples from Barcelona University and found that
supervisors favor staffs whom they individually know and vice versa. They also came to
a conclusion that informal systems are on a verge to be induced by lower- educated staffs,
in smaller firms and within jobs having lower-productivity. Also they found that informal
networks have an adverse affect on salaries, wages, supervisory for people and also
characteristics of the firm (Kurtz, 1971).
Recommendations
1. Firms and managers within must keep eyes wide open. The firm must try to get along
with its staffs and build a bond with them. However, the firm must keep a check that
those relations do not become very close or elite.
2. Managers must try to lend his/her ears to all its staffs equally. They must try to foster
ecology of open interaction and deliver avenues for unidentified communications
also. The staffs must be permitted there right to equality, privacy and also
confidentiality.
3. The firm must change teams of management around periodically, and permit member
of team demand for a change within leadership.
4. Firm must arrange for feedbacks and employee survey in order to know the facts of
the firm and the relation amid supervisors and subordinates.

5. Firm must never hire or promote staffs solely on basis of referrals or relations.
Conclusion
Firms must have unbiased supervisors and impartial mediators, so that staffs can interact
without hesitation and provide their actual feedback. Favoritism definitely leads to
negative performance of the firma and thereby have to be avoided at any cost.

References
Arya, A., & Glover, J. (2003). Real Options, Conflicting Valuations, and
Favoritism. Topics In Economic Analysis & Policy, 3(1). doi: 10.2202/1538-
0653.1177
Bramoulle, Y., & Goyal, S. (2009). Favoritism. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:
10.2139/ssrn.1484756
Garicano, L., Palacios-Huerta, I., & Prendergast, C. (2001). Favoritism Under Social
Pressure. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.274934
Kudamatsu, M. (2009). Ethnic Favoritism: Micro Evidence from Guinea. SSRN
Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.1440303
Kurtz, A. (1971). Degree of favoritism versus no favoritism. American
Psychologist, 26(2), 203-204. doi: 10.1037/h0037916
Morimoto, F. (1955). Favoritism in Personnel???Patient Interaction. Nursing
Research, 3(3), 109???111. doi: 10.1097/00006199-195502000-00005
Mujtaba, B., & Sims, R. (2010). Gender Differences in Managerial Attitudes Towards
Unearned Privilege and Favoritism in the Retail Sector. Employee Responsibilities
And Rights Journal, 23(3), 205-217. doi: 10.1007/s10672-010-9162-y
Robin, S., Rusinowska, A., & Villeval, M. (2012). Ingratiation and Favoritism:
Experimental Evidence. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2050437