Equity in the Workplace: The Equity Theory

How do you know when you are not being treated fairly in the workplace? What are your basis and how do you make assumptions in your mind? Do you create your own values of what is fair and what is not or are you someone who just believe on what others have to say?

Stacy Adams, a behavioral psychologist, spearheaded a pioneering research on employee motivation about how individuals in an organization perceive equality in the workplace. He found out that each employee make his own personal calculation according to how much input (Time, Effort, Loyalty, Hard Work, Commitment, Ability, Adaptability, etc...) he puts on the job and how much outcome (somethings put on the job such as salary, employee benefit, expenses, recognition, reputation, responsibility, etc) and compare that to someone who he believes performs the same amount of input and outcome as he does. If any of the values are not the same, issue of inequality surface.

Equity equation
Picture taken from wikipedia

This is perhaps a valid view of how people view fairness in the workplace. But things are not usually expressed in numbers. People usually assign their own personal values about their own input and outcome to what others have to put on their respective jobs and arrive in a conclusion that all things are equal and inequality isn't happening in the workplace.

According to Adams, once an employee perceive inequality, he or usually resorts to any of these efforts:

1. alter inputs/outcome (for example: lowers amount of effort on the job)
2. distort input/outcome in the job (change the way he sees the situation and think that the other person is putting a lot than what he or she puts on the job).
3. demands increase in outcome (e.g. increase in salary or recognition, responsibility
4. terminate relationship (resignation or leave the organization)

Pretty nice thinking. Well, is that how you perceive equality in your workplace as well?