Treating employees fairly doesn’t mean treating them the same

Treating employees fairly doesn’t mean treating them the same 

A leader recently asked me if treating everyone “fairly,” meant treating everyone “the same?”
I’ve heard this question many times over the years and my answer is always the same. “NO.” In fact, treating everyone "the same" is the opposite of treating everyone "fairly."
One of the fastest paths to low morale in an organization happens when fairness gives way to sameness.

Sometimes this problem arises from misguided kindness or loyalty. Often it is motivated by the leader's inability to engage in difficult conversations or deal with conflict. In the end, left unattended, your best people will get sick of it and either stop performing or leave. The worst performers will drag down the organization.

It’s important to look carefully at each person and each situation to prevent what I call the “lazy manager syndrome.”

A superintendent once asked me if he could require all his union employees to cash their paychecks after work rather than during their unpaid lunch break. When I asked him why he would want to do that, his answer was that the same three tradespeople were always late coming back from lunch on payday and that wasn’t good for morale.

Rather than deal with the real morale problem or the specific people, he thought it would be “better to treat everyone equally.” Of course I didn’t let him do it, and I helped him have the necessary conversations with those three people. Problem solved!

High morale is aided when everyone understands the expectations/rules/norms of the workplace and holds themselves and each other accountable to them. Trust builds in that space, and distrust builds when no one pays attention, particularly when it’s the leader who is not paying attention.

In more than 35 years of leading all kinds of people in all kinds of roles, including unionized staff, I have not had ONE lawsuit, grievance or arbitration case because I treated people fairly. The people who did experience those problems were leaders who held no one accountable, held people to different standards, or held everyone accountable for the misdeeds of others.

When you model and lead with transparent fairness, you will be trusted. You will be respected and appreciated for your fairness, even from those who are not performing up to par. Everyone will know exactly where they stand, an important factor in employee confidence and motivation.

People are not and never have been exactly the same. They have different needs, performance levels, personalities, work styles, motivations, and goals. When you honor this reality, you will be more likely to honor each person for who they really are. You cannot lose by being fair. You can and will lose a lot by painting everyone the same.

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