The very perception that one or more members in a work group are contributing less than they could do is termed as perceived loafing
Especially in corporate and business organization models, the infrastructures require efficient internal communication and that is exactly why accessing and evaluating the group productivity is important. Not all members are working with equal dedication and efficiency in the team. To judge the contribution from each end and to enhance individual activity psychological investigations lead us to unravel and discuss perceived loafing. In order to fathom how people, behave in a group and how does their performance graph fluctuates when they are with the team and without them, perceived loafing is a concept that aids this process of monitoring.
Sole psychology behind perceived loafing
The very perception that one or more members in a work group are contributing less than they could do is termed as perceived loafing. To make an estimation of reduced team effort is perceived loafing. Perceived loafing definitely does not mean that team members at a work place are actually underperforming. The sole intention is to keep a track of the productivity cycle so that no member lags behind. This helps the team supervisors to keep backup plans to meet the team goals. To examine the perceptions of team members is important to fathom team satisfaction but these perceptions might not be accurate always.
Reaction of group members to perceived loafing:
Be it any domain of work or any team in any work sphere, the members almost always are likely to not be satisfied with perceived loafing. It is inversely proportional; perceived loafing is never positively related to satisfaction with members of a team. The moment inequity is perceived in the group that has a negative effect upon team members being satisfied. It is also said that perceived loafing might have a negative impact on the real contribution by team members. This might lead to lower performances. Group members find it discouraging that they are perceived of as weak hence, that affect adversely.
Topsy-turvy consequence of perceived loafing
Perceived loafing might boost team members to boost their performances as that might compel them to prove themselves. The negative perception of a reduced productivity might enhance the team members to work at par so that the estimated perception does not come true.
Major off shoot of perceived loafing:
Instead of concentrating on the perception of people, team members often work harder for fleshing out an impression that they want others to perceive of them. Impression management is the major consequence of perceived loafing. team members often engage in impression management for defensive or assertive reasons. Team members start working on the basis of their speculation of other’s thoughts. To mold other’s perception is the sole goal of impression management.
Sectors of a corporate that are palpable to impression management and largely under perceived loafing
An array of psychological researches has been conducted to study work performances, team effort, group productivity, individual contribution parameters and their graphs and this shows that there are some certain sectors that are directly related to perceived loafing and their consequences. Performance appraisal is one of them. This regular review of an employee’s job has a lot to do with impression management. The employee is almost always conscious of his/her presence, impact, contribution and conduct in the professional domain. Impression management is a psychological facet that deals with such appraisals for performances in the work place since employees are aware of their images at the work space. In this case employees are almost always inclined towards building an identity for themselves. Impression management helps team members groom themselves to become more attractive, important a figure at the work space.
Feedback seeking is another sector at the corporate arena that is tangible to impression management. evaluation of team performance and individual efforts are premised upon the composite report of feedback seeking. Supervisor – subordinate exchange quality and the influence tactics are also related to impression management among team members.
Selection interviews are largely tangible by impression management since that deals with assumptions, evaluation, perception and its interpretation as well.
The recent status of research in the field of perceived loafing and impression management:
Impression management being a major offshoot of perceived loafing warrants more and wide spread serious psychological investigation. This arena needs to be examined more since corporate work spaces are expanding with urbanization and globalization. Global work force requires more technical and psychological transparency. The corporate work spaces are becoming more organized and formal yet very less focus has been put on study of impression management among employees be it long term employment or freshers.
Perceived loafing also results to defensive impression management
This mostly indicates that group members are not performing well. A certain sort of stubbornness is inculcated in the team members that hinders them from working with their full potential. They cannot digest the very fact that their efforts are underestimated and the perception of others is not going in their favor.
Conclusion: The satisfaction with group members is negatively corelated with defensive impression management and with perceived loafing too. The entire arena of perceived loafing is all about psychology and analysis of team work. To judge individual activity and trace productivity simply based on assumptions is anything but a piece of cake. But human intuition cannot be taken for granted especially in team work and larger global work forces.