Study Finds Loyal Workers Exploited

Does it pay to be a loyal employee? Based on the results of a study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, employees who exhibit loyalty to the company they work for are not rewarded—they’re exploited.

As the study’s abstract states, company loyalty is typically considered to be “moral principle, or virtue, worth exemplifying in social and business relations.” But the study found that loyal workers were neither protected nor rewarded. Rather, they were selectively targeted by managers through exploitative practices.

The assumption, the study says, is that loyal workers will go out of their way for a company. Evidence in the study reveals that management tends to take advantage of that trait, creating what the study calls “bidirectional causal links between loyalty and exploitation” and manifesting a “vicious circle of suffering” for the loyal employees.

In other words, if an employee is loyal, they will make personal sacrifices for a company when asked to do so, which then further demonstrates the perceived positive and desirable reputation of being loyal—and this cycle continues to repeat itself.

The study also addresses the exploitative nature of asking versus requiring an action from an employee that would not be in some way compensated or beneficial. One side of the argument would say that a request should not be seen as exploitation, as the employee has a free choice in the matter and could turn down the request. However, the authors of the study state that when there is a “significant power difference,” as there is between a manager and a subordinate, the employee with less power might not feel free to decline the request.