Manysupervisory decisions, from day-to-day work assignments to selections for promotion, are seen as affected by favoritism, whether that be intentional, unintentional, or merely a misperception on the part of an employee, the Merit Systems Protection Board has found in a new report, Preserving the Integrity of the Federal Merit Systems: Understanding and Addressing Perceptions of Favoritism.
According to the report, 28 percent of employees indicated that their own supervisor had engaged in favoritism within the past two years, and 53 percent of employees believed that favoritism had influenced the decisions of other supervisors in their organization.
MSPB based the report on its own survey and interviews with employees and employee groups, but its conclusions are supported by OPM’s own federal workforce survey data. Consistently, federal employees see only a tenuous link between rewards and actual performance, and it’s something agencies must address because it can undermine morale and productivity.
Employees may perceive it occurring even when it’s not due to a lack of information. MSPB produced the report in part to help supervisors and managers improve in that area while identifying steps employees can take to improve their understanding of the merit systems and their ability to advance within them.
Employees were most likely to report witnessing favoritism through social interactions (27 percent), the report said.It also found that almost as frequent were perceptions of favoritism regarding traditional benefits that supervisors may bestow upon employees: desirable work assignments (26 percent), awards (23 percent), performance appraisal ratings (21 percent), promotions (21 percent), and acting supervisor opportunities (21 percent).
