Social Loafing

1. Think about the ethical implications of social loafing in a self-managed team. Who should step in when team members and managers are aware of social loafing?

Social Loafing is when a person (s) is not equally productive when working within a group. This occurs when a group’s project participants reduce their efforts, knowing they will not be held accountable for the result. This phenomenon most often hurts self-managed teams. Social loafing will cause decreased productivity because resources that need to get the job done are unsuccessfully met due to incomplete, poor quality or delayed work. As a result, when the team performs poorly, higher costs occur because not every team member is working to his full potential. A loafer lacks accountability. Task visibility is defined as the amount of awareness a manager has of each group member's effort. Researchers have found that social loafing is more likely to happen when task visibility is low because loafing employees believe that their lack of effort will go unnoticed. Employees who are highly motivated that see their best efforts go unrecognized may be more tempted to engage in social loafing. Highly motivated employees may see group projects that contain social loafers as infringement on their own autonomy and this can affect their work efficiency. The result can be a breakdown in cohesion within the work force preventing the group from meeting their goals. Employees who observe their peers shirking away from responsibility will tend to reduce their own efforts. Top managers of the organization can be proactive and educate the managers and employees about the dangers of social loathing. The top manager of the organization needs to recognize potential pitfalls, monitor and intervene when and where it is indicated.

2. Have you ever worked on a team where social loafing created problems? What happened? Would you handle it differently now?

Many of us have experienced working within a group with members that practice social loafing. Working within a group project can be difficult for highly motivated workers. I was elected to join a working group to accomplish a project. The group was too large which made it difficult for designating the jobs for each member in the initial planning stage. Consequently this gave some members the opportunity to take advantage of the situation. The members of the group that were motivated leaders began the project and worked diligently to plan the task, while the social loafers dissolved into the surrounding environment. This was recognized within the working members of the group and loafing members were assigned specific tasks. This placed pressure on the loafers and they did eventually accomplish their tasks. It became clear to me in the very beginning stages of the project that the membership was too large and multiple members were shirking.
I would handle future situations by being more vocal about the situation earlier and help coordinate a more specific plan in the beginning to have all members participating equally and hold others accountable. Research indicates that job performance is more likely to improve when employees are assigned specific and measurable tasks.

Heibutzki, Ralph. "Ethical Implication of Social Loafing in a Self-Managed Team." Small Business. Chron, 2 Feb. 2012. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/ethical-implication-social-loafing-selfmanaged-team-35701.html