Workplace Favoritism Example from Carl

by Carl
(Find-Your-Dream-Career.com)

Let me start things off by submitting an example of workplace favoritism that I noticed early in my career.

The example of workplace favoritism that I witnessed involved a manager who was quickly moving up the ranks in the company and was obviously a favorite of the CEO. As time went on this person got promoted over other people and as they moved up the ladder and got more senior positions, they always seemed to promote people who they'd worked with in the past. Specifically, they hired former colleagues at companies that they’d worked with in the past.

Typically, they’d bring a former colleagues in to replace an existing staff member who was holding that position. They also seemed to promote people already working at the company who they were friends with.

It seemed that this manager had a small group of people who were perceived as being friends of theirs. Word got around the company I worked for that this was sort of how things worked.

Certainly over time, it became a talking point in the company when a new person was hired in a fairly senior position.

It was always assumed that any new person that was hired was a friend of the manager and the question was related to when and not if the two had worked together in the past.

You've probably heard about how managers and senior executive often "take people with them" to their new position so this is not necessarily uncommon and that’s pretty much what occurred here.

Sometimes it results in people who are in the existing position(s) getting fired so that the manager can put "their people" in these jobs instead and can surround themselves with their friends.

One of the interesting things was to see how managers who didn’t seem to be part of this executive's inner circle responded when the executive brought a friend into their department or division. In some cases, the existing staff member stuck around and ended up with either a new job in the company or a less senior one.

In one instance, a senior manager who reported to the executive must have seen the writing on the wall because he quit and got a new job in another company.

Carl