Fairness in the Workplace

Fairness is not necessarily a matter of equality. To be fair is to be just, it is to do what is appropriate. It embraces a sense of justice and even-handedness that is appropriate to others and to situations, without dealing with everyone or everything in exactly the same manner, i.e. seeing things as they are and giving them their due. It is to give each their just desserts. This may, in some instances, involve treating people absolutely equally, but in some instances fairness requires punishing one and rewarding another, or giving more to one than another for the same achievement.

At Schuitema we refer to fairness as a “hard value”. It is clear why this is the case when you compare fairness with something like kindness. The brand promise of kindness is gentleness and it does not require that one “crack the whip”, as it were. Fairness on the other hand requires a crack of the whip in certain instances. Fairness thus requires courage, it requires that we are able to step and do the hard thing, in pursuit of what is just.

Being fair does not however give us the license to be indiscriminately harsh with others. There is always the danger that we may become insensitive to the situation and the individuals and end up committing actions of injustice in the name of fairness. We may for example end up saying something that is hurtful and destructive to another out of anger or resentment, but justify our actions to ourselves by claiming that we were being fair.

The best way to avoid making these sorts of mistakes is by basing our fair actions in care for the other. If you can’t take someone to task for their sake then be very wary of your actions. Do not trust yourself when you are acting out of anger or resentment. Take harsh measures in the pursuit of what is fair only from a stable position rooted in care for the other. Seek to uplift people, rather than break people down. If this is your genuine intent and you do not act out of anger or resentment, your harsh actions will likely right a wrong, rather than merely create a new one.

But what requirements does being fair place on us in the workplace?  Here is a list of 5:

Take accountability:

Fairness requires that we place the same standards on ourselves as we do on others. A fair person should always be willing to take accountability for the mistakes they have made before anything else, and not try to shift the blame onto someone else. If it is yours, then own it.

This firstly means owning up to ones mistakes and accepting the consequences of those mistakes eloquently and without resentment. It also requires however that you do whatever is required to right the wrong, instead of leaving the mess for someone else to clean up.

Act without prejudice:

It is easy to allow our prejudices to get the better of us, and like it or not, our prejudices always tend to bite us in the ass. In a workplace setting, fairness requires that we put all of our prejudices aside and treat each with respect and appropriacy. This is the case even when taking someone to task. Just because you have a dislike for men with long hair, this does not make it legitimate that you behave harshly to long-haired men.

Prejudices will skew your actions towards injustice if you allow them to. For this reason you have to put these aside when dealing with others in the workplace.

Act without Favouritism:

Just like prejudices, our preferences for certain people over others and our office alliances can skew our actions towards injustice.

Fairness thus also requires that we remove any hint of favouritism from our actions in the workplace. There is no requirement that you like all of your colleagues the same, there is however the requirement that you do not let your dislikes influence the way you behave.

Do not tolerate mediocrity:

Fairness firstly requires that we apply appropriate standards of performance to ourselves. It also requires however that we place appropriate standards of performance on our colleagues as well. To allow a colleague to consistently under-perform or behave, without taking any steps to address the rot, is a failure to be fair.

Standards exist to establish a satisfactory level of input and performance. It is only fair that everyone is held to those standards, without exception.

Make sure however, when addressing performance and behaviour issues in colleagues, that you do so with the genuine intent to get them to raise their game for their sake, as much as for anything else. This must be done in order to avoid committing an injustice in the name of fairness. Do not, in the name of fairness, slap a person for farting, just because it irritates you. You can only ask them to go do it outside as a favour to you.

In the case of poor performance or misconduct, take the time to find the root cause:

The last thing I am going to note as a requirement of fairness is due diligence in addressing performance and behaviour issues. When addressing such issues it is absolutely essential that we have an accurate understand of the nature of cause of the issue before we attempt remedial action. If we do not do this we are likely to cause more harm than good.