As long as the run for the money, reputation and power continue, greed exists! As this greed progresses, it leads to ‘favouritism’, which is today popular as ‘Nepotism’.
Once an individual grows, he/she naturally develops a feeling to benefit people close to them for different reasons. In other cases, the people around might also use the individual’s influence to grow by themselves. From an individual to a family or workplace or any other, nothing is an exception to Nepotism in modern society.
The Oxford dictionary defines “nepotism” as “the practice among those with power or influence of favouring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs.” The ‘talent versus nepotism’ debate is age-old, but it refuses to die and resurfaces from the murmurs every now and then.
According to Wikipedia, the term comes from the Italian word nepotismo, which is based on Latin root nepos meaning nephew. Since the Middle Ages and until the late 17th century, some Catholic popes and bishops, who had taken vows of chastity, and therefore usually had no legitimate offspring of their own, gave their nephews such positions of preference as were often accorded by fathers to son. The Business Dictionary defines nepotism as a Practice of appointing relatives and friends in one’s organization to positions for which outsiders might be better qualified.
Nepotism culture always existed and has increased in recent years. Thanks to the out-speaking individuals and self-talent who brought it to the limelight, sharing their experiences boldly across public platforms. Undoubtedly, it has a severe impact on professionalism. Subjected to this unfair culture, individuals tend to lose their confidence, opportunities, and more deepening into mental distress and loss of morale.
Think about how you feel when someone obstructs or intentionally targets you to bring you down or pull someone up when you are on a self-developed growth path? That’s what happens to every victim of nepotism culture!
Be it entry-level management trainees, or a senior-level executive, new joinees often experience resistance at their new place of work. Many a time, they fall prey to office politics and are forced to join one of the camps, because that ensures job safety and also peace of mind. It is commonly seen amongst many senior executives switching jobs, not alone but with their own favourites. People may argue that group movements from one company to the other are due to the comfort level that the team shares within, but it is also a major reason for groupism.
Workers who are the most innovative or productive or those who possess visionary leadership are inevitably propelled to the top. That’s the image many of us have of the workplace. In reality, the practice of favouring and promoting relatives or paramours, more commonly known as nepotism, is widely practiced in companies large and small across the country.
One of the chief complaints in a company that operates through nepotism is the patent lack of fairness. Perceived favouritism of a relative can cause dissatisfaction among workers and lower morale. Employees may have less incentive to perform their responsibilities diligently and proficiently if they feel that the path to promotion is undermined by nepotism.
Indeed, a company employing such tactics may find its more valuable employees seeking new employment where their talent is better recognized. At a minimum, workers will likely complain and become embittered and less productive in the face of blatant nepotism. Very few laws regulate nepotism at either the state or central level. Nevertheless, the consequences of nepotism may increase your risk of being sued for discrimination or hostile work environment if an MNC.
Nepotism usually leads to an inferior work product. Employees who are rewarded and promoted because of their relationships with management are likely to be underqualified for the positions they are expected to fill. That can lead to an erosion of leadership skills at the senior level of the corporation and also contribute to the demoralization of more deserving candidates.
Nepotism and groupism exist as the very nature of organisations. Wherever there is power or a desire for power and resource allocation, there is a natural tendency for people to gravitate to the person in charge. Office politics is the outcome of such behaviour and people promote such acts in the workplace.
This is where the role of HR comes into play to function for the people. While it is important for any leader to understand the structure of office politics, using it to one’s advantage has to be actively discouraged. HR should have the guts and gravitas to stand up to wrongdoers, mostly because power structures in an organisation are organised around the most powerful people in the company. So any act of wrongdoing cannot be reported to the people who are pulling the strings themselves.
HR needs to have a strong character and a positive relationship with the CEO so that one can put in positive interventions directly and be an advocate for the victims. Senior management HR jobs are filled with such challenges. Companies need a specific policy to tackle corporate bullying, to recognise it, and what steps to take as an employee who wants to remain anonymous or be a whistle-blower and report the issue.
Preventive measures can help. Bullying can take on multiple faces. Inside the office space, the bully may prevent the victim from working on good projects, shift her/his desk to a place near the washroom door or force the victim to work for extended periods to miss lunchtime and eat alone later. In today’s context, one of the probable cases for harassment that may crop up is with regard to performance management, when everybody is working from home.
Preventive measures can be put in place in the form of capability building and training workshops, where individuals are taught to recognise forms of harassment and the kind of behaviour that is tantamount to bullying. In addition, they can be offered a direct and anonymous way to report negative acts of nepotism and bullying without having to face any consequences for reporting it.
A clear indication of nepotism or bullying at the workplace is when people start to leave. To get to the bottom of the issue, HR can conduct stay interviews which are more effective than exit interviews as there is ample time to recognise and sort out the issue. In a stay interview, the interviewer is the most crucial element of the process and should be mature, smart, and capable of extracting information. Otherwise, people tend to beat around the bush. A stay interview is hard work with a lot of back and forth.
Many multi-national companies include anti-nepotism and anti-fraternization policies in their employee handbook. Some policies prohibit the hiring of an employee’s relatives under any circumstances, while others only prohibit it if there would be a direct or indirect reporting relationship between the two related individuals. These precautionary policies are sensible and should be used by your company in some form.
Another useful strategy is to require employees to fill out an annual conflict-of-interest form that discloses whether they have initiated or participated in any decisions providing a direct benefit to a relative or person with whom they have a personal relationship.
