Decoding Favoritism at Work: 10 Signs, Strategies for Management, and Overcoming Obstacles

As an employee, you’ve spent so much time learning new skills and abilities to start an upward career path. But what can you do about “favoritism” in the workplace, which might be why your employer doesn’t see your hard work?

It doesn’t matter whether favoritism comes from your managers or coworkers; it can turn your workplace into a toxic environment that impacts your growth.

It could be the main reason why your manager chooses your colleague over you for raises, promotions, and important responsibilities. 

Moreover, you may work in a competitive and toxic workplace without even knowing it’s due to favoritism in the office.

Therefore, it is important for you to learn about favoritism signs in the workplace and how to manage it.

Definition of Favoritism at Work

In simple words, favoritism in the workplace is showing kindness to specific employees based on factors unrelated to their performance just because you like them more than others.

According to the United States Commission favoritism is not considered a legal problem and cannot be punished, unless it is due to gender, race, ability, religion, etc.

That is why reporting and solving workplace favoritism can be challenging for human resources and affected employees.

Note that favoritism does not only happen from employers to employees; it can also happen when individuals choose to work with specific workers and reject collaborating with others.

Why Favoritism Is a Problem in the Work Environment

Favoritism in the workplace is bad for your business in the first place because it creates an unfair atmosphere in the work environment, which can lead to infighting among employees.

When employees notice their managers are mistreating them, they will experience different negative feelings and emotions, such as losing respect from others, losing productivity, decreased motivation, bad relationships with their colleagues, etc.

It is good to know that studies show that workplace favoritism also diminishes future opportunities because it can destroy professional relationships, which is among the worst things that can happen to a business. 

What do you think happens when your employees feel injustice in the office? They will quit, and when they do so, it will add expenses for your business because losing talented and skilled workers in the middle of a labor shortage makes your work harder to replace them.

10 Signs of Favoritism in the Workplace

As human beings, most of us feel uncomfortable to work in a place where specific individuals are overlooked for no reasons. Yet, it happens in all work environments; so, it is better to know the common signs of favoritism in the workplace.

In the following section, we have gathered the most important signs that show favoritism in the workplace.

1- Giving unfair assignment of tasks to specific employees

One sign of favoritism in the workplace is when a manager gives several advanced or high-profile responsibilities to a specific group of employees, especially those who are less expert rather than experienced coworkers.

In simple words, experienced employees get rejected to do important tasks, which can be extremely frustrating and others may feel they are not trusted by their employer.

2- Your manager spends too much time with specific employees

Have you ever noticed that your manager spends a lot of time with a particular employee in the break room while doing nonwork activities? If yes, it might be considered as workplace favoritism.

However, you need to remember that you can’t be sure what is going on between them, so it is better to try not to jump to conclusions if you don’t know it’s favoritism or just a friendly relationship.

The interesting thing is that you may also notice such behavior while you are working remotely. For example, you see that your manager spends more time with specific employees in Zoom calls while talking about nonwork topics.

Finally, keep in mind that friendly relationships in the workplace are a good thing as they can create a more enjoyable environment to work in; yet, it is important for everyone to know how to behave so it won’t be considered favoritism.

3- Uneven raises, benefits, and promotions

One of the main reasons that can cause uneven raises and benefits is the lack of pay transparency; it also can lead managers to make unfair decisions about an employee’s benefits and payments.

Ultimately, keep in mind that if other employees notice that their colleagues are getting better positions, raises, and benefits, they may start gossiping about favoritism in the office.

4- A special relationship going on between your manager and an employee

As mentioned earlier, sometimes it is difficult to say favoritism is happening in a work environment surely; however, if you notice a personal and nonwork relationship is happening between your boss and colleague, you can be concerned.

Note that such relationships can directly affect professionalism in the workplace, which has a bad impact on the atmosphere of the office.

5- Some may have unfair access to mentoring

We all know how mentoring can help employees to better improve their abilities and learn new skills.

However, when it comes to favoritism at work, some individuals may have access to specific mentorship plans that others do not, which means they will have unfair opportunities that may not deserve them.

Keep in mind that when some employees access such benefits, they may put the whole team’s performance at risk.

6- Your boss takes sides

Conflicts are something normal in the workplace, and they give everyone an equal chance to talk for themselves and consider new perspectives.

However, conflicts can become a nightmare if an employer keeps taking sides with specific employees even though they are not right.

Therefore, taking sides is among the most common signs of favoritism in the workplace, and it can expand bad behavior and stop employees’ growth.

7- Your employer communicates differently with some individuals

Have you ever noticed that your boss talks to your colleague differently than other employees? If yes, you need to know it’s another sign of favoritism at work.

Suppose your manager talks to a coworker formally while communicating informally with others; it means favoritism because they are treating that person differently, which can make the employee feel singled out.

If you ever find yourself in such a situation, it is better to ask your boss for a serious conversation and explain how this behavior impacts your performance and others around you. 

8- Constructive feedback and suggestions only for specific employees

As you may know, employers have a very important role in encouraging their employees to better communicate and improve their various skills; one of the best ways they can reach this goal is to give constructive feedback and suggestions on their performance.

However, they need to be careful about how they treat each employee; if they encourage some staff more than others, it means they are playing favoritism in the workplace, and others will notice such behavior sooner or later. 

Favoritism in giving feedback may have the opposite result, which can lead to less collaboration, communication, and productivity among workers. 

9- Too much attention and praise

If you notice that your boss is always praising you and your performance in front of others, it means that he/she is playing favoritism and others are not happy with it.

We all know how great it is that your manager praises your work, but it will be an awful experience for the one who is always praised and those who aren’t.

Thus, getting too much attention, even if it’s unnecessary, is another sign of favoritism at work.

10- An old relationship between a boss and an employee

Sometimes an employee and a boss can have a pre-existing relationship because they have worked in the same company or department, or were neighbors, and even were classmates.

There is nothing wrong with such a thing unless the boss won’t treat that special person differently from others.

If other workers notice that old relationship or specific friendly behavior, then the first thing that comes to their mind is favoritism.

Top Strategies to Avoid Favoritism at Work

As said before, favoritism hurts the health of a company, and as a manager, it is your responsibility to avoid it; otherwise, you will lose top talents and skilled employees that every organization wishes to work with.

Here are some of the most useful strategies that help you fight favoritism and prevent it in the workplace.

1- Train your team

Note that favoritism doesn’t always happen due to bad intentions; as human beings, it is our nature to follow self-serving biases that can impact our relationships.

To solve such a problem, you can consider unconscious bias training for both leaders and employees to promote equity in the workplace and provide unwanted favoritism.

2- Create an organized system

Another effective way to avoid favoritism is to use metrics rather than emotions for important decisions, such as giving promotions and raises.

Creating such a system helps you track employee performance based on their abilities while using metrics, which helps to prevent bias and workplace favoritism.

3- Try to create bonds with each employee

It is very natural to have better connections with some employees than others; the important thing is that you try to create bonds with all team members and get to know their interests and characteristics better.

The goal of doing this is to find a way to better communicate with all employees to avoid the possibility of the existence of workplace favoritism. 

Note that it is alright to share the same interests with your employees, but try not to let this cause you to like them more than others.

4- Be transparent

The best and easiest thing you can do is to make it clear that you won’t tolerate favoritism and nepotism in your organization.

You can also survey employees to understand what they think about favoritism in the workplace to evaluate better and address such bias.

5- Try to be more inclusive

As a manager, you need to ensure that everyone in your team is comfortable to speak up in meetings, not just a particular employee who keeps talking.

One of the best things that help you avoid favoritism in the workplace is to encourage your team members to participate in meetings and group calls and feel free to speak their minds and share their ideas.

Simply put, staying more inclusive in the office is better because it helps all employees have fair opportunities to participate in different activities and feel more valued. 

How to Overcome Favoritism Obstacles

If, as an employee, you ever notice that your manager is playing favorites in the workplace, you need to do something about it.

If you want to overcome favoritism at work, you must stand up and not be afraid of who you are going up against because what matters is to stop workplace favoritism.

The first thing you can do is speak with that one manager who causes favoritism and inform them about the consequences of their actions.

However, there are other useful ways managers and employees can overcome this issue at work.

Improve yourself and your skills

One of the best ways to fight and prevent workplace favoritism is to focus on yourself and your abilities to stand apart and stay ahead of your coworkers.

Therefore, it is better to stay focused on improving your skills, advocate yourself, and work hard until no one can put you aside from the office’s “favorite group.”

We all know that managers prefer skilled employees; to improve your skills, you can take online courses or participate in different workshops to develop your abilities. 

Use metrics to remove bias

As an employer, you must create workplace policies that clearly define favoritism at work. You can start by using a goal-tracking system to remove possible bias from decision-making.

You can use such metrics to decide who is the best candidate for a reward or promotion. These tools help you track employees based on different items, such as “How fast they finish their tasks,” “The quality of their work,” “How well they respond to customer requests,” etc.

Not that the metrics you track must have quantifiable goals measured monthly or annually.

Doing so lets all employees have a fair and equal chance to prove their abilities.

Build strong relationships with managers 

As you know by now, when managers have favorites in the workplace, those groups of favorite employees are more likely to receive bonuses and promotions just because they have a more friendly relationship with your employer.

Therefore, if you want to overcome this issue in your office, you can build a closer relationship with managers and subordinates.

FAQs

1- Is workplace favoritism toxic?

If an individual hasn’t outperformed their colleagues yet receives a promotion or other perks, it means favoritism is taking place, making the work environment toxic for everyone.

2- Why do employers show favoritism at work?

One of the main reasons managers show favoritism in the workplace is that some employees make their lives easier by doing their tasks. Such employees are easier to manage and are positive workers, which makes it easier to collaborate with them.

3- Is workplace favoritism illegal?

Favoritism isn’t always considered an illegal action, but in many cases, it is, which depends on the reason a manager favors someone over other employees. For example, if favoritism is due to sex, gender, harassment, retaliation, or discrimination, it is illegal, and the manager is doing an illegal behavior.

Conclusion

When people work together in an environment, it is quite normal for both managers and employees to develop friendships.

However, the important point is that leaders and workers must learn to differentiate professional workplace relationships from destructive negative behaviors that lead to workplace favoritism.

As mentioned before, workplace favoritism is destructive to your business, as it squashes productivity and puts the whole company at risk.

If you are experiencing favoritism in the workplace, you must learn how to manage and avoid it; you can start by being honest about employee performance to build a fair work environment where everyone feels valued.