By Nsunjo Erica
As an entrepreneur, you should be fully aware that all your employees are entitled to equal treatment regardless of their skills, positions, and age.
The moment you decide to start practicing favoritism at your workplace, hey, you have failed as a professional boss. Favoritism involves giving preferential treatment to one or more employees for different reasons.
If your workplace is that where if an employee is ever late for a meeting or misses a deadline or violates any of the company rules and still gets away with it unlike others, dear you, your employees will lose focus.
Frankly, no one wants to deal with a boss who plays favorites, one that acts like some employee does it better than the rest, this kind of behavior affects employees’ motivation and engagement, they will feel devalued.
As a boss, you may not realize the impact of your favoritism to your employees, but get it today that it causes resentment and encourages disrespect, a favored employee will think he/she is above the rest and act extraordinarily.
Dear entrepreneur, if your employees get deeply spanked by your favoritism, be prepared for less teamwork and fewer engagements, favoritism will tear your team apart since certain employees feel they do not matter.
Favoritism arises competition, leave alone this official competition aimed and growing and developing, I mean that competition of who does it better to impress the boss, your team will be divided into parts that you can’t combine.
Sometimes employees will tend to double efforts to impress you, however, if you tend to choose an employee as your favorite, the others may feel that no matter how hard they work, they aren’t appreciated.
Everyone’s intention at work is to develop and grow the company which means hard work and appreciation, however, if one or two employees are appreciated more than the others, trust me, there is to be a problem.
Favoritism and nepotism move hand in hand and they not only lower your employee’s working morale but negatively impact teamwork, communication, employee relationships, and work performance, watch out.
Some bosses will even go the extra mile to offer rewards and promotions not based on objective criteria or merit but favoritism, which may discourage effective and professional competition and affect team productivity.
Any leader who engages in this type of behavior, favoritism, is not allowing his team to grow and reach its full potential, some teammates may decide to be reluctant because, despite their efforts, they aren’t recognized.
Actually, sometimes having a favorite employee isn’t bad at all but the way you conduct yourself towards other employees matters, you should treat them equally then your favoritism behind the scenes.