How many times have you seen that "Employee of the Week" sign or perhaps "Employee of the Month"?
A researcher from the University at Buffalo's School of Management said that's a bad idea, only adding to office envy.
Danielle Tussing, an assistant professor of organization and human resources, studies organizational behavior: how people in an office or in a company behave.
Tussing said envy can be a problem in an office or a company because not every worker looks at rewards the same way.
"Most of the time when we talk about envy, there's this assumption that I envy you, I'm going to try to minimize the gap between us. So I'm either going to do something to try to bring you down to my level, sabotage you, or I'm going to try to reduce this gap between you and me by me improving myself," she said.
Tussing said envy can create a situation where workers retreat from participation in the company effort or leave, and not enough companies do exit interviews to understand why people are leaving.
She once worked in an office that banned coffee cups on desktops. It increased the sense of separation between white-collar and blue-collar workers, workers and management, and took time to bring things back into balance.
Too often, she said, top executives really don't know what's going on in the workplace, especially with younger workers, who are looking for a great deal more feedback on how they are doing than their bosses might have received in their day.
The UB researcher suggested companies do more to reward and praise groups of employees who work together for the benefit of the company.
"Rather than just individuals, they're really trying to establish a sense that they're in this together, my success is your success, and vice versa," Tussing said. "So celebrating not when one particular person makes the most widgets or breaks the sales record, but really thinking about when there are teams and larger groups that create great things."
