Work Favoritism - Find It and Stop It

Work favoritism can sneak up on people and start a chain reaction of ill will against the favored employee and the unfair manager. Find it and stop it as early as possible

Ways to tell when there's favoritism at work

- Supervisor spends too much time with the favored employee

- Supervisor praises the favored person for smaller accomplishments that others don't get praised for

- Supervisor lets errors slide when they are made by his/her favorite person

- Manager gives employee additional help and coaching during completion of assignments

- Manager socializes more with favored employee than others in the department

- Employee enjoys more resources, better office, added perks and benefits than others in his/her position do.

When you are playing favorites

If you see yourself in the profile given above, it's time to take action and stop playing favorites with an employee of yours.

You may have been playing favorites under the justification that your favored employee is a great employee. You may have developed a soft spot for the employee because it reminds you of yourself. You may also have a secret crush on the employee. Or, you may just like the employee more than the other employees.

Whatever your reasons are, favoritism at work is a bad practice. It starts a chain reaction of jealousy among the other employees, which could in turn lead to rumor spreading and backstabbing. Worse yet, it may escalate to an organization level issue where your managers and Personnel have to intervene.

Did I scare you enough? I hope so. Playing favorites at work is best avoided.

When your boss is playing favorites

The very first thing to do is determine if favoritism is taking place or it's just a case where the favored employee is working hard and getting the spoils for it.

If you determine that it's indeed plain favoritism toward an employee for personal reasons, your next step is to find out the concrete losses you may have suffered due to the favoritism taking place.

Take that information to your Personnel department and ask them to help you sort out and resolve what appears as a work favoritism situation.

Summing up

When favoritism may be taking place, it's best to deal with it early on, before other employees start feeling jealousy and resentment toward the favored employee and the favoring manager.

Jealousy at work is not always caused by favoritism, but it's a natural consequence of it. Jealousy can be very destructive to the workplace, it can lead people to engage in rumor spreading and gossiping about the person they envy.

Don't wait until resentment builds or rumors start to fly, deal with favoritism now and prevent future conflict in the workplace.