A series of online studies discovered that full-time managers often exploit loyal workers rather than protect and reward them. This exploitation includes assigning additional unpaid work or uncomfortable tasks outside work hours, under the assumption that loyal employees are willing to make personal sacrifices for their company. This research was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Loyalty is a virtue that involves a strong sense of commitment, allegiance, or fidelity to a person, group, or cause. It is important because it fosters trust and stability in relationships, whether personal, professional, or societal. Loyalty builds confidence and reliability, as individuals know they can depend on each other in times of need or adversity.
In the workplace, loyalty contributes to a positive and cohesive work environment, leading to increased productivity and job satisfaction. In personal relationships, loyalty strengthens bonds and creates a sense of security and mutual respect. Multiple theories see loyalty as one of the key foundations of morality, binding groups together, making them more cohesive and coordinated in ways that usually make the groups more successful.
But is loyalty always beneficial for the loyal person? Study author Matthew L. Stanley and his colleagues wanted to explore this by investigating the relationships between managers and employees. They were particularly interested in the relationships between perceived loyalty and exploitative organizational practices, which often involve assigning excessive or unrelated tasks without additional compensation, benefitting managers at the expense of employees.
The researchers hypothesized that managers might view loyal employees as more exploitable, targeting them for exploitation. Alternatively, they considered whether managers might protect loyal workers to retain their allegiance. Four studies were conducted with participants ranging from 211 to 510 full-time managers, recruited via Prolific.
In the first study, managers were split into three groups, with the first group reading about a loyal employee named John. The survey then described scenarios requiring someone to work overtime or perform uncomfortable tasks without compensation, querying the likelihood of assigning John to these tasks. The second and third groups underwent similar procedures, but with John described as either disloyal or without any characterization. All participants assessed John’s willingness to make personal sacrifices.
The second study aimed to determine if the effects observed were unique to loyalty or applicable to other virtues. The study procedure replicated that of study 1, with the difference that, instead of loyal or disloyal, John was described as either fair, loyal, honest, or no description of John was provided.
The third study described John facing requests for unpaid work, including overtime and tasks unrelated to his job. Participants read about John either accepting or refusing these requests, then evaluated his loyalty, honesty, and fairness.
The fourth study replicated the procedure of study 3, but additionally asked participants to judge the exploitativeness of the tasks and John’s loyalty if he agreed to the unpaid work.
The results revealed that managers were more inclined to assign unpaid extra tasks to John when he was portrayed as loyal, particularly for overtime work. A statistical model suggested that managers view loyal employees as more willing to sacrifice for the company, leading to their exploitation.
The second study confirmed that managers preferred exploiting the “loyal” John over others, with no differentiation when John was described as honest or fair.
The third and fourth studies indicated that managers perceived John as more loyal if he accepted unpaid tasks, without affecting perceptions of his fairness or honesty. The fourth study also found that the more managers viewed the tasks as exploitative, the more loyal they deemed John if he accepted them.
“Society has made some positive strides in formally outlawing egregious kinds of exploitation, but more subtle types of exploitation remain all too common,” , the study authors concluded. “Insofar as exploitative managerial practices persist, certain workers will be targeted for exploitation. Although loyalty is typically touted as a moral virtue worth exemplifying, our research indicates that loyal workers are perceived to be more exploitable than other employees, because of the common assumption that loyal individuals are readily willing to make personal sacrifices for the objects of their loyalty.”
“Given that workers who agree to participate in their own exploitation also acquire stronger reputations for loyalty, the bidirectional causal links between loyalty and exploitation have the potential to create a vicious circle of suffering for certain workers.”
The study sheds light on the relationship between workers’ loyalty and behaviors of managers. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on short hypothetical one-off scenarios. Results might be more nuanced or not the same at all if real-world relationships were studied.
The paper, “Loyal workers are selectively and ironically targeted for exploitation,” was authored by Matthew L. Stanley, Christopher B. Neck, and Christopher P. Neck.