Organizational injustice is systemic

In my excavation of Bradberry and Greaves' book Leadership 2.0, trying to dig up an insight, I unearthed a jarring discontinuity. Bold claims are made in the first choppy pages of the chapter on organizational justice, but the actions fall short of the vision for organizational justice.

“The ability to get what we deserve from the tremendous effort that we put into our work,” “the feeling that your efforts are respected and valued,” “[feeling] empowered” and “feeling satisfied with how you spent your time” are all given as definitions for organizational justice (pg. 12). The actions Bradberry and Greaves recommend to achieve these feelings; however, are to communicate decisions early, to share the rationale for those decisions, and to show concern for the impact of those decisions on direct reports. No explanation is given to how “communicating before, during, and after (pg. 15)” produces “the ability to get what we deserve (pg. 12).” The connection between feelings of respect, value, empowerment and satisfaction are tentative, but I can infer that the opportunity to share my opinion of decisions does give me a voice, and I may feel more empowered as a result.

Since “the academic community has long known that organizational justice boosts employee job satisfaction and productivity (pg. 13)” yet even the researchers can supply nothing more than vague anecdotal activities to produce organizational justice, I conclude the idea of organizational justice is caged at the top of academia’s ivory tower, far from the masses it’s intended to enlighten. I strongly suspect Bradberry and Greaves live in said ivory tower and have not held typical employment for more than six months in the United States since they would certainly have experienced organizational injustice for themselves and could not have blithely concluded that communication improvement would resolve it.

Despite the uselessness of Bradberry and Greaves' analysis, organizational justice truly is a universal business weakness. The tech industry is renowned for the short stints that software engineers stay at companies, and in my experience this is often caused by the cavalier attitude tech leaders take towards recognition and reward. Douglas, a senior software engineer for a consulting company likes to tell stories of “Schrute buck” experiences he’s had at previous companies. Schrute bucks, named after their invention on popular office-life parody show The Office, are paper rewards of questionable monetary value given arbitrarily by a manager named Dwight Schrute. Douglas has witnessed similar appreciation awards given to salaried colleagues who consistently work late hours and take on responsibilities beyond their role. What employee, given the choice between accumulating appreciation awards or accepting a promotion with higher pay at another company, decides to stay? It’s therefore imperative that business leaders take seriously the pulse of their organization’s reward and promotion system and search for culture-specific ways to address injustices or else diminish the motivation of their best employees and drive talent away.

To achieve organizational justice takes more than better communication about decisions. My company’s own brand of organizational injustice relates to the poor definition we put into career roles. Individuals are overlooked for promotion on the basis of factors other than skill against a baseline, such as their manager’s arbitrary expectations of progress and role advancement. Arbitrary role definitions disempower employees because there is no source of truth to advocate for a promotion or to gauge progress towards their career aspirations. This leaves employees attempting to understand and meet their manager’s expectations for an arbitrary period of time with little certainty that, if their manager’s expectations are at last satisfied, new expectations may not be added.

To promote justice in this circumstance, standardized role definition will be much more effective than decision-making communication strategies. When roles are clearly defined and documented, employees are empowered to advocate for their achievement of the role expectations. This also grants managers clear guidelines for critical feedback, guiding conversations towards measurable skills an employee must improve for their next promotion instead of the skills a manager is biased towards.

References