Unequal Treatment: When Favoritism Is Workplace Discrimination

Unequal treatment, the early warning sign of discrimination.

Favoritism vs. Discrimination

Whether it is favoritism or discrimination, unequal treatment among teammates is when a supervisor gives one employee an unfair advantage for career success not extended to others or on the other end when a supervisor is unfairly critical of an employee hindering their career success compared to their peers. The difficulty with this sign of discrimination is it can easily be dismissed as favoritism. And unfortunately while favoritism is annoying to every employee on the losing end of it, it’s not illegal.

However, favoritism does become illegal and discriminatory, when the disparity of treatment falls along the lines of a protected class. By this I mean only members with a shared characteristic that defines them as part of a particular class are treated differently. For example, this could mean only members of the same race as the supervisor receive the best opportunities or only members of one gender have their work evaluated more critically.

Inconsistent Opportunities for Success

Inconsistent opportunities for success occurs when an employee with lower or equal qualifications begins receiving a disproportionate number of desirable responsibilities that are not made available to others who are equally or more deserving of them.

These responsibilities are those that increase the employee's visibility and opportunity to succeed in the workplace, but because it is not tied to compensation, it is easier to ignore as not having enough impact to warrant action even if the decisions are discriminatory. However, each opportunity assigned becomes a disadvantage to the employee consistently overlooked for these responsibilities due to their being part of a protected class.

For example, if a team includes only 1-2 women, but all of the favorable projects with high visibility are assigned to the men on the team, it is going to be significantly more difficult for the women on the team to advance in their careers. The reason for future discrimination, such as withholding a promotion, will be justified as "lack of impactful contribution" but the supervisor will fail to acknowledge that they made the decisions that limited the opportunity given to the women.

Unfair Criticism

Unfair criticism occurs when an employee or group of employees receive a disproportionate level of criticism or scrutiny for their work compared to their peers.

This criticism and scrutiny will be defended by the supervisor delivering it as necessary and specific to the employee who is on the receiving end. However, each incident of disproportionate criticism further damages the employee's potential for success. The criticism will not only be reflected in documents like performance reviews, but it also serves to make the employee feel inadequate in their role even if they're performing at or above the level of their peers who receive less criticism.

Using the same example as above, if the two women on a team are held to a higher standard than the men they may be disproportionately punished for making the same exact mistake as one of their male counterparts. For the male who made the mistake, the incident is dismissed as out of character and as a result it has no impact on his career moving forward. However, for the female the mistake serves as confirmation of a lower-level performance already expected of her. As a result, the mistake is remembered, appearing on their performance review and serving as an excuse to deny them additional responsibility.

For this example, the final form of discrimination will often be a discriminatory termination or layoff that is justified as lack of performance, but ignores that the women were unfairly scrutinized and criticized compared to their male peers.

What to do if you think favoritism is workplace discrimination?

Identifying favoritism or the fact that you are experiencing a disadvantage because of favoritism is not enough to be certain discrimination is a factor. Not all favoritism is workplace discrimination, but all discrimination initially presents itself as discrimination. To know for sure, you need to start documenting incidents, capturing evidence and building a timeline. Only through this process will a pattern of discrimination emerge - if one exists.

Get Started for Free