On fairness at work

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Few themes have shaped my experiences at work as much as the notion of fairness. While many people want their workplaces to be fair, I have learned over the years that there is a spectrum as to how people interpret fairness and how much people value it as a concept. Whenever I’ve completed a values exercise, fairness is one of the few values that is an unquestionable addition to the list. I belong to a subset of people who are exceptionally triggered by injustice. I’m aware that sounds somewhat self-righteous but that’s really not my intention. Similar to how some people have achievement or perseverance or faith as a core value, fairness happens to be one of mine. 

The poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama, once said that:

most people do what seems reasonable to them at the time, most of the time.

Unless you are dealing with a sociopath, or someone who is being flippant in the conversation, then you are likely speaking to someone who believes their actions are reasonable, even if they are objectively entirely not. And few situations are truly objective. That perception, that if you don’t particularly value fairness then by default you are being labelled as unfair makes it a tricky topic to talk about. That label becomes interpreted as a character flaw. A personal attack. Yet, the experience of fairness is deeply personal. 

Fairness is defined as the quality of treating people equally or in a way that is right or reasonable. Equal is more subjective than you might think. Start a conversation by asking “should salaries for remote employees be based on role or location?”, and you’ll soon hear how different people interpret the words “fair” and “equal”. Often, the pursuit of fairness is simply a drive to ensure we’re not receiving less than someone else.

Organisations tend to have policies and processes in place which aim to ensure employees are treated fairly. Pre-defined interview criteria, career frameworks, salary bands, unconscious bias training all fall into this category. Well-intentioned procedures, while important and necessary, cannot completely mitigate the fact that no workplace is a meritocracy. That’s not to say that merit isn’t rewarded. You are certainly less likely to propel up whatever ranks you choose if you’re bad at your job (although I’m sure many of us know exceptions to that rule). However, being good at your job isn’t enough to get ahead. When being evaluated for a promotion it’s not just your work that’s being evaluated, it’s also people’s confidence in you being able to succeed at the next level. Those factors can be wholly subjective. Even the most merit-minded companies cannot fully escape the ills of society from seeping into their organisations.

It’s impossible to talk about fairness without talking about discrimination. While discrimination is not the cause of every act of unfairness at work, those who fall outside of the traditional majority, tend to be treated less favourably at work. The gender and racial pay gap is one example of this. The make-up of the traditional majority differs by country. In European & US based tech companies it typically means cisgendered, straight, white, non-disabled, male, from an upper-tier socio-economic background. That’s not to say this group isn’t subject to a lack of fairness at times, it’s just that they are more likely to experience positive bias in their favour that is not based on merit. 

The other reason that workplaces will never be a true meritocracy is due to the fact that life can impact our work. Sometimes our work may temporarily suffer due to health issues, family events or other stresses in our lives. Most of us would probably want these issues taken into account when it comes to evaluating performance during review cycles or needing some additional days off. This is certainly the more human approach. It feels like the fair thing to do, although the extent to which people believe allowances made are fair will be subjective, and dependent on the impact to them. These kinds of exceptions dissuade the notion that work is purely an assessment of objective output. 

One fact that can be difficult to accept is that beyond avoiding discrimination, companies are not obliged to treat you fairly. There is no law against granting promotions to your colleagues for arbitrary reasons. There is no law that says if you work hard you are guaranteed a pay-rise. Business is a sport built on the idea of exploiting an unfair advantage. There are a few rules that can’t be broken (i.e the legal ones) but all other opportunities are fair game, both for the business itself and often for the employees in it. It is the societal value of fairness that pushes companies and people towards acting fairly, or at least towards being perceived to be. 

I’ve gone through a personal journey with my views on fairness at work. In several roles I have spoken out against a lack of fairness both publicly and privately. I don’t regret it (probably because it is in line with my values), however, it did definitely harm my career prospects in those organisations. Sometimes it resulted in a change, sometimes not. Caring so much about fairness, which was an extension of caring about company culture, came at a significant personal cost to my wellbeing. I’ve found this to be the case with several of my friends who also over-index on fairness as a value. We’ve all made a conscious decision to care less to preserve our mental health. I find it both a little bit sad and freeing. That’s not to say that people shouldn’t fight for fairness, particularly on important matters, but be mindful of the tradeoffs involved. I still care about fairness. I try to embody it and nudge decisions to be more fair where I can influence them, but am more cautious in my approach. This too of course comes with a cost but let’s face it, in a world that is deeply unfair, office matters are hardly the most important factors that I could be channelling that fairness focus on.

There are some things I wish I had figured out sooner. Here is the list which I hope may be helpful to others:

• Fairness can be subjective. Not everyone cares about it equally.

• You are often dealing with an unreasonable person who thinks they are being reasonable. Maybe sometimes they are. Ask yourself what would make you view the situation differently.

• Some organisations are inherently more fair than others. Seek those out if that’s important to you but remember none will ever be unwaveringly fair in all decisions.

• Play the game on the field, not the fairer one you wished existed.

• Once you accept the factors you can’t control, or have limited influence on, it frees you up to develop  greater agency over the things you can. That is a source of empowerment in an otherwise unfair situation.

• If you’re going to care deeply make sure it’s something worth caring deeply about.

• Figure out your own unfair advantage.