Hate My Loafing Teammate!

Have you been in a team wherein your group mates are slacking off

pretending to be busy or not even doing anything at all while some of

of you in the team are doing almost everything?After all the hard work,

they are basking as well in the glorious spirit of a victory party when

everything turns out right for a job well done. Must be irritating

huh? Well your group mates are definitely social loafers.

Social Loafing is the tendency of group members to slack or exert less effort when a task is assigned in a team. There is diffusion of responsibility wherein social loafers can get a free ride because someone else will do most of the job for them allowing the occurrence of laziness to be concealed or become undetected.

Such a tendency takes place when other members feel that some are not putting as much effort as themselves so as to balance the negative inequity that is perceived in the workplace. In addition, if compensation, rewards and or benefits are not divided amongst individual members equally, this can also happen. Social loafing also happens when there are several people already working on a particular task that has a well defined goal, thus a few more members feel their efforts are no longer needed to attain it. In addition, when some members realize that they can just hide in the crowd and can get away with the consequences of not contributing any to the given assignment, this can also cause social loafing. Another reason would be the nature of some people who are so concerned about their uniqueness and individuality. These people feel lost in a crowd and thus lost their motivation to offer their full ability since they will not gain recognition or acknowledgement for their contributions as the output will be recognized as a group work. Another factor that strengthens social loafing is the absence of individual evaluation by the working environment brought about by monitoring of performance and if their output reaches set standards, if there is any.

So how can tendencies of social loafing be prevented or even lessened in managing teams? Possible solution involves the establishment of rules in the beggining to emphasize what the team objectives and goals are and how they should be attained. Consequences of not following the rules should be included and implemented when necessary. Another solution is to establish individual accountability and responsibility, in a way that each member specializes on a specific task so that each one will not rely on the group for his assigned task. Moreover, creating the appropriate group size or number of members whose experiences, abilities, skills and knowledge complement for other group members will show each member the importance of their role and tasks in the team and will lead to having less people to diffuse responsibility to. Another alternative that cures social loafing is the creation of opportunities for members to socialize and establish trusting relationships as the sense of belongingness can help make members feel comfortable to be working with and interacting within a group leading them to fulfill their duties more efficiently (Maslow's Hierarchy Theory). The presence of an evaluation system that monitors the progress of each individual member will also prevent this. To make the monitoring more valuable it is best to personally meet with each member to let them know which areas they still need to improve on and that during group meetings or team sessions, both individual and team efforts and achievements are recognized and awarded in front of everyone including superiors.

So to all managers, team leaders and supervisors, watch out for loafers lurking around your teams. Allowing these free riders to linger could definitely demotivate or even infect your most dedicated and skilled members in due time which will gradually affect the performance of the whole team, change the norms of the company and negatively affect your performance and image as a professional leader as well.