Competition accompanies a person throughout his life. The school teaches you how to compete with others to receive an honor and a better grade, get into a prestigious high school and how to pass a test. In adult life, employers quite often cause a „rat race” among employees.

Competition at work, of course, also has many advantages. However, the employer must foster the right atmosphere so that employees can feel at ease and thus strive for better results. Good competition significantly improves skills and promotes intellectual development – it intensifies the desire for further education. And nothing has a better impact on the development of the 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, above all, mental and physical exhaustion. Staying after hours, leaving parental duties, not caring about social contacts results in workaholism. Striving to be the best often comes at the cost of breaking moral principles and the frustration that results when personal success becomes a priority. Psychologists define 3 motivations of people who want to get better results at all costs:

• The desire to be the best in one’s field – as long as it is combined with motivation, education and sharing knowledge with others – this has good effects on the development of the company, the opposite effect is achieved by striving „after the corpses” to the goal and reluctance to work in a group;

• Noticing and transcending one’s own limitations and shortcomings. This motivation can also have two sides. Raising the bar can contribute to both achieving better results and more effective work, and on the other hand – continuous improvement and seeing only what can be „improved” can contribute to a sense of failure and loss of faith in one’s own abilities;

• The desire to have the driving power. Not everyone is a born leader, but not every leader will manage the work of the team well. The very desire for power can help to focus only on personal success, not on the achievement of the company’s goals.

Unfortunately, quite often it is the employees themselves who cause an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and lack of trust. This is quite often associated with not informing about the conditions that must be met to receive a promotion, a higher salary, a good bonus. By competing, employees snatch orders from each other, do not ask for advice, because they do not want to inform someone about the lack of a skill, blindly compete for promotion.

However, research indicates that simple, single-track tasks are more effectively carried out alone, while more complex orders, requiring 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 the intended effects.

In addition, people who care only about their own success and promotion are not valued employees in the company at all. 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 every failure personally as a life tragedy.

Nobody likes to come to work with a negative attitude. The thought of continuous implementation and the uncertainty of the workplace often does not contribute to greater efficiency. However, it is possible to replace bad competition with one that will be beneficial for both parties. Therefore, it is worth thinking about changes in the team that would improve the relationship. One of such solutions is to organize an integration meeting, thanks to which employees will have the opportunity to get to know each other from the private side, which will translate into more friendly relations in the company. The easiest way is a fair-play game in which managers clearly present to subordinates goals and tasks, the employee evaluation system and the conditions for obtaining a raise.

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

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