Staff manager who plays favorites is playing with fire

Dear Joan:
I have a situation in my office for which I would like your advice. I work for a very large telecommunications company on the East Coast. Although I have been working in my position as an account manager for four years now, I started working for a new boss a year ago due to a merger.

I recently discovered that this boss takes certain employees in our department to baseball games and other events during business hours over the summer and throughout the year. Certain employees have gone to sporting events several times, while others have never been asked to go, including myself. I should mention that there is an employee, newer than myself to the department, and he has been invited twice now. I should also mention that it appears to be only men who go to these games and I understand that there are really no business discussions going on at these events. The outings require no use of vacation hours; they are simply a perk.

I wouldn’t mind it so much that these employees get to take time off during business hours to go and enjoy the afternoon, if it weren’t for the fact that there are others of us who can’t take so much as an hour off without having to use vacation hours. There are certain employees (myself included) who are not allowed to work through lunch to make up an hour, while other people in the department are allowed to do this.

I would say something to my boss directly, but I suspect he really doesn’t like me and I would just be labeled a complainer if I said anything.

I should mention that our boss does give some nice perks to all employees, which I really appreciate. I get to work flexible hours along with about half of the office and everyone gets Friday afternoons off in the summer months without having to take vacation hours. We also are allowed to dress casually (when we don’t call on customers).

Am I not appreciating the benefits I do have (even though everyone gets them)? Or, is there some discrimination going on? Is there a way to address this with my boss without appearing to be a complainer?

Answer:
I’d be annoyed, too. In the best of circumstances, your manager is lacking some basic understanding about fair play and how to build a team. A worse case scenario, your manager is displaying favoritism. His selective invitations to certain employees have created an uneven playing field, whether he realizes it or not.

It appears that there is even a disparity about the way "everyone’s" benefits are administered. If some people can make up time and others can’t, I have to wonder what the criteria are for these decisions. Is it based upon the job duties? For instance, in some customer service jobs, work hours must be adhered to for coverage purposes. But if this isn’t the case, it certainly looks like favoritism to me.

Employees who aren’t his cronies must be feeling like you do. Who wouldn’t? They must feel as if the boss doesn’t like them, either. They must wonder if their careers will be ignored, while his buddies’ careers will flourish. And if the "have’s" are all men and the "have not’s" are all women, the career opportunity imbalance will appear to be tipped in favor of men. And that’s where the risk lies for the appearance of discrimination. Although these outings may be done in ignorance and innocence, others may view the chosen ones as having an unfair advantage when raises and promotions are handed out. This manager is playing with fire.

Ironically, this situation isn’t fair for the manager’s pals, either. Even if they are good performers, any raise or promotion will be tainted with whispers about favoritism.

If your manager is blind to the obvious predicament he is creating, I doubt that he will be open to your opinion. If you do bring this up and he reacts with more hostility, you have several choices—go to Human Resources, or to your next level of management with your concerns, or you may decide to leave.

Your situation in not unlike many stories I hear about the subtle, and not so subtle, discrimination in many workplaces. It’s where the term "glass ceiling" got its name. Many women feel that situations such as this aren’t bad enough, or overt enough, to fight against. They chose their battles carefully and try to outperform their peers. In the end, if they feel that their good work will lose out to cronyism, many of them take their talent and go where they have a fighting chance.

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