The question of equal versus fair and equitable comes up often as organizations deal with issues of race, gender, age and other factors related to hiring, compensating, promoting, disciplining, and managing staff. Is the difference just a matter of semantics or perception? Does this matter in the workplace? If not clearly defined and left unaddressed, employees’ gnawing perceptions will affect an organization’s culture and values as well as employee morale, attendance, productivity, loyalty and trustworthiness.
My attempts to get a clear definition for and distinction between equal, fair and equitable have been futile. Guy and McCandess’ Social Equity: Its Legacy, Its Promise state that the difference is one of nuance. One could and many have argued that they are intertwined. Nonetheless, forward-thinking management understands to ensure equal opportunity to all employees in its management philosophy and practices. Unfortunately this is easier said than done. Why is that? To start with despite the belief that all people are born equal, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and equal employment laws, we know the playing field is not level for everyone. Social/economic, educational, cultural, mental and physical differences together with institutionalized stereotypes and biases continue to undermine innovative and progressive strategies for promoting equal opportunity. Our current workforce is and will be increasingly diverse in gender, age, education, culture, language, religion, sexual orientation, working parents, single parents, etc. What hasn’t changed is employees’ trust that they will be treated equitably by management. Trust is something I have found to be lacking in many of today’s organizations.
In the article Dual Entitlement and Peter Drucker’s Equity Theory by Charlie Cory he writes that Equity Theory describes the relationship between how ‘fairly’ employees perceive they are treated and how hard they are motivated to work. Peter Drucker first proposed the link between Equity Theory and employee’s motivation. Drucker writes “The basic idea behind the Equity Theory is that workers, in an attempt to balance what they put into their jobs and what they get out, they will unconsciously assign values to each of their various contributions, for example; experience, relationships, personal strengths… and, of course, money for many workers is the primary motivating outcome but, it’s not the only one… for example; for other workers the desired outcome might be– power, status, position… for still others it may be– better work schedule, flexibility…” This implies that not all employees are motivated by the same things. For some it may be money, for others it may be recognition, flexible or part-time work schedule, telecommuting, and perhaps work site childcare. Needless to say, there will be employees who will not understand that certain employees will require special accommodation to ensure productivity, employee development and equal opportunity to grow and promote. It is important to point out that one of Crystal Vogt’s assumptions of Equity Theory in BizShifts-Trends “The Equity Theory – Principle of Balance, Fairness, Justice…In the Workplace: Workers Perceptions About Fairness Does Matter..”, August 6, 2014, is that “Employees who perceive themselves as being in an inequitable situation will seek to reduce the inequity either by distorting inputs and/or outcomes in their own minds (i.e., cognitive distortion), by directly altering inputs and/or outputs, or by leaving the organization.” Vogt goes on to say that “Absent employee fairness and balance the organization will suffer.” This does pose challenges for forward-thinking management.
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