Research on social comparison theory shows that when we are around peers who are doing worse than us, we attribute our higher performance to a stronger personal ability. But, if our peers are doing better than us, we attribute our underperformance to something other than our ability, such as bad luck.
Furthermore, the performance of people we work with directly is more influential on employee performance than average organizational performance data, meaning peer groups matter a lot more than company averages. This creates both a risk and opportunity of local teams getting better or worse over time due to differences in member performance. Having higher performing employees work alongside lower performing co-workers or teammates may improve people’s performance expectations and increase overall team performance.
Here are two ways to use social comparison effectively:
- . Organizations should consider intentionally mixing together higher and lower performing employees in work groups and teams – but only if the culture is collaborative rather than competitive.
While there can be value in mixing higher and lower performing employees, it can also create risks. Social comparison also indicates that our peers influence us in both positive and negative ways. For example, simply working close to someone who is a high performer or has high status within the company can motivate an employee to do better on their own work tasks, even when the two employees are not part of the same team or work group. In other words, when working alongside a high performer, employees’ performance tends to improve.
However, when someone performs to compete with a high performer, that person’s performance tends to decline. This suggests that people are inspired by high performers, but intimated if they feel like they are being compared against them. When employees are inspired, they can model their behavior based on what they see works well for high status or high performing employees. This supports the idea that organizations should frame goals and tasks in such a way that emphasizes collaboration over competition. For example, rewards should not be given out in a way so only a few people can win and everyone else loses. It should be possible for everyone to be equally successful, even if it is unlikely.
- . Performance objectives should enable people to compare their performance with others, but they should not make people feel like they are directly competing.
Social performance theory can also help guide how companies evaluate employee performance. This was covered in detail in a recent article by Steve Hunt discussing the concept of social performance management (SPM).
SPM focuses on managing individual employees as part of a larger group. Other performers who are better or worse than us inherently guide performance. To maximize performance and development, employee assessments should be based on both individual performance and how they are influenced by the performance of those working around them. More specifically, methods of employee evaluations should consider how performance is influenced by peers by categorizing employees into specific performance groups. This categorization is ideally done through calibration sessions in which managers rank employees based on observable behaviors in multiple contexts, including social ones in which peer influence occurs.
