Invisible Disadvantage: Unmasking Bias Based on Financial Standing in the Workplace

By Dr. Grace Lim

From worrying about paying the rent to eating too much discounted ramen, having little money is no fun. Thankfully, getting a job can solve many problems. Or does it? Going beyond the personal challenges faced by workers with lower financial standings due to their lack of money, a recent study[1] explore how such relative poverty translates in the workplace. Sadly, it seems that less fortunate employees are not treated as well as others.

One thing all firms share is a concern that unethical employees might abuse their position to steal from the company or their colleagues. Keen to preserve themselves from potential cheaters, firms take many steps to protect their assets. In addition to motivating firms to invest in worker surveillance, this same fear also guides how they allocate tasks internally, with jobs presenting more opportunities to cheat reserved to trusted employees. But how to know whom to trust? Working with firms and students in locations ranging from the UK, Singapore and India, the team ran a series of experiments tailored to highlight how the perceived financial standing of employees – established using props like clothing, work status, gender and other socio-economic markers (such as someone stating they are juggling two jobs while another person saying how much they love traveling the world) – influenced how they were monitored and whether they were presented with the same career opportunities as those perceived as more financially comfortable.

Findings demonstrate that supervisors seeking to constrain cheating have a psychological bias which causes unfair discrimination against workers with a lower financial standing. These workers are subjected to more surveillance when performing their duties, even when supervisors know that increased surveillance negatively affect their performance and wellbeing. Meanwhile, these same workers – despite being no more likely to engage in unethical behaviours than their wealthier peers – also missed out on being assigned to the sort of tasks which could have helped propel their careers by supervisors worried about their honesty. Interestingly, most participants have a generally positive view about the warmth and morality of people with lower financial standings, which further speaks to the power of unconscious bias. People easily guided by simple yet meaningful clues were those most likely to engage in discriminatory practices.

As employees of limited financial standings already face difficult challenges outside work, organisations keen to harness the full potential of their staff should re-assess their anti-cheating policies to ensure that they do not reflect a systematic bias against employees belonging to vulnerable groups. While training may help, it is not likely to be particularly effective when focused on a single bias factor such as financial standing.   It seems that supervisors able to conceive that a certain behaviour can be linked to more than once cause are less likely to perceive workers with lower financial standing as presenting a higher risk of cheating. Organisations should thus be conscious of the implications cheating constraint systems may have on their staff and encourage employees to consider a broader set of worker’s motives rather than being influenced by stereotypes associated with a social group while also working to limit such biases.

Reference:

[1] Lim, G.J.H., Pitesa, M. & Vadera, A.K. “Cheating constraint decisions and discrimination against workers with lower financial standing” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 174 (2023) 104211(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2022.104211)