Being highly productive in the 21st century has its rewards. Pay raises? Bonuses? More vacation time? Or a promotion? None of the above. In modern companies, doing your job well and in the shortest time possible almost always results in the employee being given a heavier workload. That’s the opinion of Rafael Alonso, an expert in human resources, and almost every employee you know who works for a company.
Does your company engage in “performance punishment”?
You do your job well. You serve customers with quality and in record time. You don’t even get up to go to the bathroom, so as not to lose five minutes of your working day. And how does your boss repay you? By giving you more work. You are more productive than your colleagues, so you have to “make the most of your potential.”
This is what expert Rafael Alonso denounces. On social media, he claims that workers who don’t complain and keep working are usually the ones who suffer the most in the entire company. This behavior is due to the fact that, historically, we have been taught that fulfilling our obligations and avoiding confrontation is the recipe for success.
This is where the expert believes modern companies are making a serious mistake. In a recent video, Rafael explains that when an employee is highly efficient and doesn’t complain, their managers tend to automatically assign them more workload or more responsibility. Without a pay raise.
The expert believes that this is not really an act of malice, but a logical response. If you need an employee to solve a problem quickly and well, it makes more sense to overload the employee who already does their job well, rather than try your luck with another, less capable employee. On the other hand, Alonso says that more incompetent or confrontational employees are rewarded with lighter workloads.
Have you been promoted at work and not been told?
No, this isn’t a joke. It’s possible that you’ve been promoted at work and everyone knows about it except you and your bank account. The fact is that “quiet promotion” is the new trend, not only in our country, but in large companies around the world.
The formula is simple. An employee is chosen and given more and more responsibilities each month. Until they have exactly the same responsibilities as if they had been promoted from their position. But of course, the employee will still have the same title and the same salary. This practice is very common in consulting firms, for example, where junior programmers who have been working at the company for five years are required to deliver the same quality and take on the same responsibilities as a senior programmer. But with several zeros less in their salary.
Silence has a cost
Alonso believes that these types of practices have an expiration date. Sooner or later, employees will suffer from enormous mental and physical exhaustion. Abusing trust is the perfect breeding ground for “quiet quitting” to occur when workers realize that all their effort is meaningless. Overworking causes discomfort, and that discomfort does not translate into more money.
The expert also believes that not all workers take revenge in the same way, but the reaction is never positive for the company. Some employees start interviewing for competitors, or directly begin looking for jobs at other companies that value their talent. Others choose to mentally switch off. They do as little as possible to avoid being fired. And in countries where there are severance payments, they are even capable of lowering their productivity to the point of getting themselves fired from the company.
For Alonso, the vaccine to prevent this situation is to set limits. We must not stop being efficient, but rather manage expectations and stop the boss on duty when he or she gives us extra work simply because we are very good at our job. Remember these lines the next time they want to reward your good work with more workload.