Individual Equity and How It Impacts Team Performance

Individual Equity and How It Impacts Team Performance

Team performance can be greatly affected by equity and how others perceive their team members.   Individual equity is considered to be compensation given to an employee based on the value that the individual employee brings to the corporation.   All individuals must feel their worth when working for an organization because based on the quality of this worth, is what will determine their performance levels.  

Equity undeniably will affect team performance should members believe they are not being compensated fairly based on their duties.   People often wonder why they should be paid the equivalent as another associate that is doing the same job with less effort which can lead to disagreement in the workplace.   Day states that if “inequity is perceived, efforts to alleviate dissonance may manifest themselves as complaints to supervisors, grievances, allegations of discrimination, union organization attempts, poor morale, and even turnover” (Day, 2007, 12).   Workers become upset, unmotivated, and lose faith in their organization when pay inequality occurs.  

What to Do
When attempting to achieve equity, managers must ask the following three questions:

 Are pay rates fair?
 Is each individual’s pay fair compared to that of others doing the same or similar task?
 Are pay rates fair when comparing them to outside markets that would be considered as competitors?

Management must consistently ask these questions and ensure that equity is achieved to maintain motivated and engaged employees.

Perhaps the best advice to give in regards to individual equity and how it affects team performance is to simply limit all conversation based on pay as truly it is a private subject matter.   According to Day, “Probably the most critical reason that organizations do not actively communicate about pay is to discourage workers from making comparisons with fellow employees. By inhibiting such comparisons,...