Do People View Your Organization as Just?

By: Josh

In my previous job as a faculty member at West Point, I had the responsibility of selecting a few cadets (of the 130 in the organization) for specific leadership positions each semester. This gave those selected cadets a focused opportunity to practice their leadership in a supportive environment, while striving to improve our company. Of course, I couldn’t pick every cadet for these influential roles over the limited semesters available.

But after a few semesters of managing these decisions, one of my soon-to-graduate cadets offered candid feedback during one of our one-on-one sessions. He said that many in the company viewed me as a “puppet master,” selecting the cadets I personally preferred for these positions, leaving the rest without opportunity to be considered.

Whoa, talk about a gut check. That was definitely not my intent. I quickly learned that I had an organizational justice issue on my hands and that cadets were not aware of the basis of my decisions. At least some viewed our company and my decision-making process as unfair, which stymying cohesion, commitment, and cadet satisfaction in the company.

While I addressed this issue rapidly, directly, and with all the grace and empathy I had, this moment remains as a personal leadership crucible for me. It taught me the importance of organizational justice and how leaders need to actively manage it before it causes issues like it did for my team and me.

What is Organizational Justice?

Organizational justice is the perception of fairness within the workplace. I emphasize perception because as the leader, we can believe we are creating a just environment. However, it doesn’t matter if others across our team do not. Just like my scenario above, I believed I was managing the selection of cadet leadership positions well until I received feedback otherwise. And perceptions can come from anyone who has a stake in our organization, internally or externally. This can include employees, various levels of managers, a board, investors, customers, and so on. If some population that matters to your organization believes an aspect of it is unfair, it’s an organizational justice issue.

 Research represents organizational justice as having three components:

• Distributive Justice: Who gets what.
• Procedural: How those allocations are decided.
• Interactional: How people are treated in the process.

As these components allude to, it is not just the results that matter when creating the perception of justice; processes and how people are treated do, too. Let’s break down the three components in a little more depth.

Distributive Justice. Determining who gets what is based on one of three considerations:

• Equity: Receiving something based on one’s contribution. You did X so you deserve X, while they did Y so they receive Y.
• Equality: Equal distribution regardless of any other factors.
• Need: Distribution based on some measure of personal requirement, not performance.

There is no right option of the three to base decisions or allocation of resources. But leaders need to be mindful of which one they are selecting, why, and ensure relevant stakeholders understand that. Take one of the most common workplace resources, pay, as an example. What are the impacts to our organization if pay is based on equity (amount of contribution)? This is a means of rewarding and retaining high performing employees but does create space for biases to influence those decisions, like which projects an individual is assigned or who they know personally on the management team. However, if we allocated pay equally, we would be reducing the opportunity for that bias to infiltrate our climate. Further, this comes at the cost of not rewarding high performing employees with a higher salary. There will always be tradeoffs based on the distributive option we select. Ensure distributive decisions are well thought through and communicated for shared understanding; consider the second and third order effects of our distributive decisions to ensure they do not have unexpected consequences on the team.

Procedural Justice. The process of how allocations are decided should be consistent, suppress individual and collective biases in those decisions, and accurately meet the team’s and environment’s needs. They should also include representation of stakeholders and consider their input. Who needs to have a say in this decision or whose perspective should we consider to achieve a full understanding of the situation before we decide? Does there need to be an ability to appeal the decision and is that process also fair, commonly known, and accessible to all relevant members? While the allocation of decisions is traditionally seen as being the manager’s sole prerogative, we should think about how making this process more transparent could improve our team. Not only will this increase understanding and buy-in at echelon, it will also allow our employees to understand how and why management makes the allocation decisions they are charged with.

Interactional Justice. How people are treated through decisions heavily influences the perception of fairness as well. Even terminal decisions like firing an employee requires interactional justice. Howe they are treated in the process can influence their feelings on the decision, ultimately departing on good or not-so-good terms with the company. It also sends messages to everyone else on how they are valued by the organization. One’s access to information also influences interactional justice – do others have an advantage over me because they have access to organizational information that I don’t? That impacts a person’s perception of how they are treated and, as the adage goes, perception is reality, especially when someone feels they are being slighted or disadvantaged.   

Does This Really Matter?

As we’ve read through the above definitions, I imagine examples from our own career have popped up. We may also think that our organization has been successful to this point without paying any mind to organizational justice – and that’s fair. But what ceilings remain in place across our organization due to a lack of attention toward justice? These can be ceilings we’re not even aware of.

Organizational justice is really about motivation, and it ultimately impacts organizational effectiveness. A person’s perception of the justice within their workplace influences their motivation, which affects their level of performance, commitment to the team, and job satisfaction. Enduring issues of a lack of justice can lead to high turnover, mistrust, and even the forming of sub-cultures within the larger organization. Perception of justice can help to build trust and cohesion within the team, or it can fracture it. The level of justice within our organization touches on so many aspects of our daily work, processes, and interactions, that we cannot afford to ignore it.

Maybe one of our employees who is generally seen as a low-level performer on the team is simply not motivated to bring her best self and best work every day due to her mistrust of “management” over justice perception issues. Improved communication and alterations to some workplace processes can potentially better shape her perceptions, improve her intrinsic motivation, and possibly even lead her to become a high-performing member on the team.

Where Should I Be Worried About Creating Organizational Justice?

Justice has a role in every decision, process, and interaction between people. To prevent an issue like the one I experienced, leaders need to be actively mindful on how a current decision, process, or change is seen through the lens of organizational justice. How do different stakeholders view it? Is it best actioned based on equity, equality, or need? Why that? And what are the consequences that we need to address by doing it that way? Justice touches everything we experience in the workplace, every day, and it’s our job as leaders to manage it well.

Some common and important things to pay close attention to regarding justice include:

• Hiring processes and selection.
• Assessments and how they are given.
• Promotions – who, when, and why.
• Pay, bonuses, and time off.
• Punishments and consequences.
• Allocation of resources. This can include tasks, projects, duties, responsibilities, personnel, authority, and money to accomplish what is assigned.

What Can I Do Now?

This topic can easily become overwhelming, even paralyzing, for leaders. There is so much to be aware of and so much to consider when making decisions now. But I find Maya Angelou’s timeless quote relevant in this case, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Equipped with some basic understandings of organizational justice, we are now able to “do better” for our organization and, more importantly, for our people. A few things that we can do to enable the perception of fairness to saturate our organization include:

• Consider justice in your decisions: Whether it be an individual leader decision or a collective team decision, include organizational justice as a consideration. If acting as a team (like a board or management team), talk about how the decision’s fairness will be perceived by different populations.
• Communicate intent behind decisions: Helping others better understand the process, influencing considerations, and the reason for a particular decision can do much to shape their perception of fairness behind it (even if they don’t agree with the decision). Leaders should default to being transparent with employees and relevant stakeholders. In the long run, communicating context and perspective as much as possible will help your people understand what is going on and make them feel more a part of the team.
• Get feedback: Don’t be afraid to ask your employees and stakeholders about their views on justice in the workplace. You can do this during meetings, one-on-ones, or casual opportunities to wander about the office. Asking not only connects you to others’ realities across the organization, but it also helps them feel seen and heard. Ensure you communicate appropriately with your audience, though. Starting with a prepared lecture to educate them about organizational justice may not be appropriate. Listen, don’t lecture.

In the end, this is all about being aware of how different stakeholders and demographics experience our workplace. Know that what might be seen as fair to upper and mid-level managers may not be to lower-level employees. What is considered fair for white employees may not be for racial minority ones. Or what’s fair for one gender may not be for the other. What are the impacts, the tradeoffs, and the consequences here – and what will be the best decision for our organization in our current situation? How do we make sure we appropriately motivate our team to excel, without creating an environment that is unjust or unfair?

A Comment About Social Justice

Organizational culture is a subset of our social culture. What happens in our society and communities will inherently impact the perception of justice in our workplace. Organizational justice is connected to social justice.

The role of demographics influences the dynamics in the workplace, especially race and gender; these are important identities within our society. Leaders must be cognizant of the larger social environment, how it impacts our peoples’ ability to show up in the workplace, and address it directly with respect and empathy. This may require leaders to take a formal stance on relevant, timely social matters. But at the very least, leaders must thoughtfully attend to these matters in the workplace with our people. This can require difficult conversations, adjustments in organizational systems, and even restructuring how routine business is done.

But fairly and empathetically attending to the greater social environment that our organization operates in will help our people to show up better, allow them to bring their whole selves to the workplace, and feel like they belong to something they believe in.

Our Just Organizations

Returning to my original story, I’m happy to share that following the feedback from my cadet, I was able to encourage him to become one of the selected leaders the following semester so he could have a stake in the growth of our organization. It was a fantastic partnership where I was able to watch him improve those around him – including me.

But it is important to remember that this idea of organizational justice is not a mere convenience, perk, or nice-to-have in our workplace. It is necessary to build a culture of perceived fairness among everyone in the team, which is essential to enable trust, belonging, and commitment across the team.