Anyone who has suffered unfair treatment at work knows it is demoralizing. It reduces morale, poisons trust, and negatively impacts employee relations and performance. Employees of abusive supervisors are more likely to quit, and to report lower job and life satisfaction and higher stress. Even when someone just witnesses abusive supervision—for instance, seeing a coworker abused—it triggers adverse reactions including unethical behavior.
At work, fair treatment reflects concrete actions such as treating employees with respect. Unfairness leads to increased tensions between the employee and their family or partner. Abusive supervisors undermine their subordinates’ effectiveness and may prompt them to act destructively. In terms of employee relations, employees’ perceptions of fairness relate positively to employee commitment, job involvement, and satisfaction, and negatively to employees’ turnover intention.
The employer and its managers are responsible for ensuring that employees are treated fairly and with respect. Techniques for minimizing unfairness include training managers, ensuring fair pay and performance appraisal systems, and have policies requiring fair treatment. Periodic attitude surveys also reduce unfairness.
