Managerial Solutions for Social Loafing

Abstract

It is assumed that working with others in a group has an energizing effect, motivating people to work hard. But this only occurs when collective efforts are rewarded and when people are willing to cooperate with each other. Unfortunately, what is experienced in group work can be completely different, as people are not always willing to do their best. Therefore, they inhibit themselves from making a significant contribution, while remaining unnoticed by the rest of the group. This is known as Social Loafing, which despite having been studied for years, has recently become popular due to the need for organizations to understand underperformance and loss of productivity.

As time goes by, it is increasingly important to focus on a company's human resources, their well-being and the impact this has on a company’s performance. In recent decades, people have become more important for both human and legal reasons, even surpassing the economic benefits that any company may offer. Therefore, managers have found it necessary to strengthen their skills in the psychological field, social skills, and leadership to understand and properly manage their teams to achieve the expected performance.

Effective management is not just about achieving goals, but also about understanding and influencing the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of the people within the organization. This article will therefore focus on the importance that managers and leaders be aware of the contributing factors to Social Loafing and take proactive actions to address it in an organization. It aims to suggest effective models and tools for organizations to implement in order to create a culture of accountability, collaboration, and high performance that supports achieving strategic goals and objectives in projects, programs, and portfolios, suggesting different models and tools for each level of management.

Big Idea

Social loafing has been studied for years, but it was only in the last few decades that it became relevant for managers in organizational settings. Time after the establishment of the concept with the Ringelman Effect. In 1979, Latané, Williams and Harkins proved the notion of social loafing with the saying “Many hands make light the work”, paving the way for multiple research on its causes and consequences in the organizational setting.

They framed the concept in a way that has allowed it to be approached from a different perspective since then, which is, in part, the basis on which this article is written. They defined it as a "social disease" which has evident negative consequences in the social context. It results in a reduction in human efficiency, which leads to lowered profits and lowered benefits for all. Thus, from a managerial perspective, anything that causes a loss of profit needs to be addressed.

As a "disease" related mainly to groups and collective effort, it might seem easy to avoid group work as the most effective "cure", and focus on individual collaborations. However, groups are necessary because they make it possible to achieve a large number of goals that would not be possible if each person worked on their own. Collective action is a vital aspect of our lives. From time immemorial, it has made possible the construction of monuments, and today it is essential for providing even our food and shelter. Therefore, the solution or "cure" must be to reorient the social dynamics in such a way that the group promotes a greater sense of individual responsibility rather than diluting it. This represents a great opportunity for managers to apply a range of strategies with great success.

Reduction of social loafing in the organization and increase of group synergy are integral objectives of human resource management, setting high requirements to the quality of managerial solutions. In 2017, a new study was conducted, where the beliefs and behaviours of employees that cause or reduce loafing were analyzed. Focusing on the root cause and recurrence of these sources, they established that the opposite of Social Loafing is Group Synergy and how the level of involvement is key in this context. Two new effects, also supported by Gil in 2004, can then be seen to be important in the process of identifying Social Loafing and are key to the development of management strategies. “Free Riding”, occurs when individuals who have not made appropriate contributions to the task profit from the contributions of other group members and the “Sucker Effect” when individuals decide to reduce their own effort and input to group performance (and hence diminish the reinforcements they could receive) instead of being ‘‘suckers’’ and letting themselves be exploited by "free riders".

Application

Project Level

Roles and Responsibilities

(Task Value, Redundancy and Personality) MODEL: Belbin’s Team role model

Personal accountability and Goal setting

(Task Value and Redundancy) Article No. 1 MODEL: Personal Accountability Model – Mark Samuel

Research findings regarding goal setting in groups are beginning to accumulate, likely as a result of the recognition that much of the work in organizations is performed in groups (Austin & Bobko, 1985). Several studies have been conducted to establish the benefits of Goal Setting to improve Team Performance. Thus, the theory suggests that goals are associated with enhanced performance because they mobilize effort, direct attention, and encourage persistence and strategy development (Locke & Latham, 1990). Locke and Latham's conducted some studies and their qualitative review clearly concluded the existence of a positive group goal effect on group performance. But these results lack evidence so three assistant proffesors in the United States, decided to conduct a meta-analytic review

Article about “Performance and Learning goal Orientation”

Team Development

(Group Value. Group Size, Culture and Expectations?) MODEL: Tuckman's stages of team development model Article about “Mitigating Social Loafing in Team-Based Learning”

Communication

(Communication) MODEL: Agile Project Management Model

Decision-Making

MODEL: Six Sigma Model MODEL: The Star Model

Program Level

Continuous improvement MODEL: Program management maturity model

Sense of purpose MODEL: Benefits Realization Management (BRM)

Portfolio Level

Monitor Performance MODEL: Balanced Scorecard Model (BSC)

Prioritization MODEL: Project Portfolio Management (PPM)