Organizational Behavior Problem Solving

The Fairness Principle and the “Win-Win-Win” for Survey On-Call Problem

Organizational Behavior

Working Weekends

The Problem

“Daddy! I’m singing at the choir performance on Saturday! You are coming to see me, right?” My young daughter’s exhilarated face beams with joy, but I feel a sinking lead weight in my stomach. “I don’t think I can, sweetheart,” I tell her, reluctantly. “I have survey duty this weekend.”

“But, you've worked every day this week. Why do you have to work on the weekend, too?”

My daughter’s question is a good one. Weekend survey duty! My work group inspects international shipping vessels. We ensure that the oceangoing cargo ships and their machinery systems meet the safe-operating requirements set by DNV GL, the global classification society. DNV GL (the world’s largest vessel classification society) expects its surveyors to work a traditional 8 am-5 pm, Monday through Friday workweek. However, the shipping industry operates 24/7; therefore, the survey group also must cover weekend duties on a rotational basis. My coworkers and I are frustrated by the extra burden of our additional weekend duties.

Our survey group observes that DIV LG rewards other employees for their weekday efforts with carefree weekends devoted to personal time. Not the survey group – we are expected to devote our weekends to company goals on a rotating basis. “This is not fair,” is the common survey grumble. This situation is really a version of the underpayment inequity: the survey group’s ratio of “free time” is lower than the other groups (referent’s ratio). Like the monkey rewarded with a cucumber slice, while observing its companion receiving a grape for the same task, the survey group doubts that our payment fits the social fairness comparison of Equity Theory. [CITE] Our referent – the other groups at DIV LG – tells us that hard work during the week results in weekend off for everyone except us: our company rewards our hard weekday...