Competition accompanies people throughout their lives. The school teaches how to compete with others to receive honors and better grades, get into a prestigious high school and how to pass a test. In adulthood, employers quite often cause a „rat race” among employees.

Of course, competition at work also has many advantages. However, the employer must foster an appropriate atmosphere so that employees can feel at ease and thus strive for better results. Good competition significantly improves skills and promotes intellectual development – it increases the desire for further education. And nothing has a better impact on the development of a company than qualified staff. Properly motivated employees will more actively pursue the company’s goals, which will be reflected in new ideas and solutions.

The result of bad competition is primarily mental and physical exhaustion. Staying late, missing parental responsibilities, and neglecting social contacts result in workaholism. Striving to be the best often comes at the cost of breaking moral rules and the frustration that results when personal success becomes a priority. Psychologists determine

3 motivations of people who want to achieve better results at all costs:

• The desire to be the best in your field – as long as it is combined with motivation, further education and sharing knowledge with others – this has good consequences for the development of the company, the opposite effect is achieved by striving hard to achieve the goal and reluctance to work in a group;

• Noticing and overcoming your own limitations and shortcomings. This motivation can also have two sides. Raising the bar can help you achieve better results and work more effectively, but on the other hand, constant improvement and seeing only what can be „improved” in yourself can contribute to a sense of failure and loss of faith in your own abilities;

• The desire to have causative power. Not everyone is a born leader, but not every leader will manage the team’s work well. The desire for power itself can contribute to directing attention only to personal success and not to achieving company goals.

Unfortunately, quite often it is the employees themselves who create an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and lack of trust. This quite often involves not informing about the conditions that must be met to receive a promotion, higher remuneration, or a good bonus. Due to competition, employees take orders from each other, they do not ask for advice because they do not want to inform someone about the lack of a certain skill, and they blindly compete for promotion.

However, research shows that simple, one-track tasks are more effectively carried out alone, while more complex orders that require creativity on the part of the employee are much better carried out in a team. Working in a group results in better ideas and faster achievement of intended results.

Moreover, people who only care about their own success and promotion are not valued employees in the company. This is due to the fact that they put personal effectiveness above the company’s goals, they are unable to work in a team, and they perceive each failure personally as a life tragedy.

Nobody likes coming to work with a negative attitude. The thought of constant implementation and the uncertainty of the workplace often does not contribute to greater efficiency. However, you can turn bad competition into one that will bring benefits to both parties. Therefore, it is worth thinking about changes in the team that would improve relationships. One such solution is to organize an integration meeting, thanks to which employees will have the opportunity to get to know each other from a private perspective, which will translate into more friendly relations in the company. The simplest way is fair-play, in which managers clearly present to their subordinates goals and tasks, the employee evaluation system and the conditions for obtaining a raise.

Source:https://poradnikprzedsiebiorcy.pl/-skutki-zlego-wspolpowiedznictwa-w-pracy

Supported by Norway through Norway Grants 2014-2021, in the frame of the Programme “Social Dialogue – Decent Work”.