Ways to Avoid Unhealthy Competition at Work
It’s inevitable for your employees to compete with one another. They want to receive a promotion or get a salary bump. It will only happen if they can prove their worth and stand out. Hence, an unhealthy competition begins. There’s nothing wrong if they compete with one another and bring out the best in them. It’s a problem when the competitions affect relationships. It will eventually impact productivity and their ability to collaborate. These tips will help ensure that an unhealthy competition doesn’t worsen in your team.
Avoid showing favoritism
You might have favorites in your team, and it’s inevitable. You prefer working with employees who can do the job well. You also like those who can meet deadlines and are easy to approach if there are tasks. However, even if you like some of them over the other, you can’t show favoritism. Find a way to keep these biases. If the employees start to feel that you favor some of them, it could adversely affect your relationship with them. It will also start an unnecessary rivalry among employees.
Be clear with your standards
One of the reasons why competitions exist is that the employees want to receive a promotion. They need to show their best at all times. Some of them think that being close to the boss would be the best way up. You need to show to them that you have certain standards in deciding whom to give the promotion to. All of them should be objective standards to ensure that no one questions the results. If someone receives a promotion, the rest won’t feel bad about it.
Celebrate differences
Make the most of the diversity in your team. Find a way to highlight the differences in your employees. Use these differences to improve your company. Instead of pitting people with one another, you can use a collaborative approach. In doing so, you guarantee that everyone feels welcomed.
Rotate the spotlight
Make sure you give everyone the chance to shine. You can assign leadership roles to different people. Don’t allow one person to take all the credits. You want every member to have an accomplishment. Don’t forget to focus on the idea of collaboration even if you have appointed one to take the lead.
It’s difficult to remove competition at work. Everyone wants to climb the corporate ladder, and will do whatever is possible to reach their goals. You need to make sure that you harness the differences instead of making people hate each other. You also don’t want to lose quality employees because they don’t feel at home anymore. The competition might be too toxic for some of them, and they would rather leave the team. You can build a strong company without the need to put employees against each other. Besides, the results would be much better if they’re a product of cooperation rather than competition.
Photo Attribution:
1st and featured image from https://unsplash.com/photos/lqPLmYD_MO8
2nd image from https://www.roberthalf.com.sg/blog/employers/6-ways-prevent-toxic-work-environment
