Don’t treat your employees equally

Amy Gill
Amy Gill
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read

This definitely sounds like the opposite of what I should be saying in this age of slowly growing equality.

I wholeheartedly believe that employees should not be treated equally. Let me explain…

Is it fair to evaluate each employee the same way? Before you answer, think about evaluation processes you’ve experienced at different workplaces. Do you notice that these systems expect employees to work a certain way or follow the same processes? Does it ever feel like the process is more important than the work itself?

I was talking with a friend the other day who described that most of her meetings were to discuss where people were in the process rather than discussing the actual work people were doing. She commented that if the meeting was about the work itself, the team could help each other get the work done rather than focusing on the process checkpoints. Some people have no problem following standard processes but my friend said: “I’ll get to the process when I can. I’d rather do the real work first”.

My friend’s approach may sound reasonable but I’ve heard over and over about people being chastised when they may be doing great work but are not following the process. For example, imagine an employee that came up with an innovative approach to a problem but the first question the employee’s manager asks is if the employee is following the standard process. Maybe not following the process is what allowed the employee to have the time, energy and creativity to come up with the innovative solution.

When it feels unnatural for employees to follow the standard processes, several outcomes are possible. Two of the outcomes are: the employee ignores the process and produces the work using their own methods or the employee spends hours trying to follow the process instead of being productive. The latter may lead to demotivation or stagnation in the employee’s skills because there’s so much importance being placed on the process.

Going back to the question about evaluating employees equally, I mentioned that often the evaluation focuses on employees following certain processes. But consider this, you may have employees that are producing amazing work but are not receiving great evaluation results. You should allow these employees to find what works for them instead of forcing the same process on everyone. Why should you do this? Because you should utilize people’s strengths. Isn’t that why you hired them in the first place?

Chances are, if people have different strengths than others on their team, they’re doing different sorts of things anyway. If that’s the case, why should everyone on the team follow the same process?

Judge employees by what they’re good at! Judge them by the way that they bring value to the team. When you don’t do this, when you evaluate everyone the same way and ignore each person’s strengths, you diminish their value. They feel undervalued and maybe they would be better off somewhere else. Somewhere where their skills are valued.

How can you treat employees fairly? Work with them on a path for growing their skills and career. Figure out what their goals are and how those goals align with the project’s goals and corporate objectives. Use this to come up with a method to evaluate each employee.

And don’t forget what a genius once told the world:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” — Albert Einstein

This is UX

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Amy Gill

Written by

Amy Gill

Design Researcher and Strategist

This is UX

A place where we share UX stories.

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