In managing others, human perception, attitudes and motivation are keen importance. One important OB issue spanning these dimensions is the concept of perceived fairness in the workplace.
Fairness is such a common phenomenon in organizations that most leaders typically give it little thought. If an employee says the vacation/leave, or other policy, isn’t fair he or she might get some attention. Unfortunately, some leaders/managers fail to realize that unfairness may cause overall performance to suffer. And can even have severe economic consequences. Just because you are not paying attention doesn’t mean that unfairness isn’t making a big difference to your organization’s product/performance quality, mission readiness or completion, customer service and / or the bottom line.
Consider the real life effects of perceived unfairness: For twenty years Charlie, a baggage handler was an asset to his airline. Callous rule changes and harsh supervisory treatment however led him to covertly retaliate. For months he carefully evened the score by tearing off a few baggage tags each shift. Each missing tag caused the airline both service headaches and lost dollars (at $55 per bag on average).
As well reflect on the military supervisor who appeared to have chosen ”Attilla the Hun” as a role model.
Upset with what they perceived as a never-ending stream of oppressive behavior, two technicians took a number of particularly expensive silver-lined spare radar batteries and buried them in the boonies. They almost immediately rotated stateside leaving the responsible supervisor to account for (and evidentially, also at least partially pay for) these items upon his later rotation date.
While such examples may seem a little extreme more subtle response may abound please consider:
•    Do you think this sort of behavior might be somewhat widespread in organizations?
•    Have you seen or reliably heard of such behavior? If so please cite an example. And what kind of cost /losses ($ and other wise) might be associated with your example?
•    Do leaders/ mangers you know pay much attention to this notion of perceived fairness