Work

Late last year, the company introduced a new framework to enforce an efficiency rate for picking of 100%. Workers who weren’t meeting the standard would be put into a coaching program. Some were directed to “stop all time wasting and non-productive behaviors”, according to warning letters seen by Guardian Australia. Failure to improve could lead to disciplinary action and even loss of employment. One worker described it as a “bullying” tactic.

Tim, who is over 60, said he was pushed to improve his rating. He got it to more than 80%, then 90%, then 100%, he said, but in his effort to work harder, faster, he was injured.

“You might get someone that’s … 20 years old and goes to the gym every day. And someone like me. I’m getting the average between him and me,” Tim said. “Obviously, I can’t keep up with him.”

“We’re going down the same path as Amazon,” said another worker, Ross*. “We’re not robots, we’re humans.”

Loyalty is often touted as a moral principle, or virtue, worth exemplifying in social and business relations. But is it always beneficial to be loyal? We investigate possible negative consequences of being a loyal employee in the workplace. Instead of protecting or rewarding them, loyal employees are selectively and ironically targeted by managers for exploitative practices (Studies 1–2). The targeting of these loyal workers is mediated by the assumption that loyal individuals are readily willing to make personal sacrifices for the objects of their loyalty (Study 1). We then find evidence for the reverse causal pathway: workers who agree (versus refuse) to be exploited in the workplace acquire stronger reputations for loyalty (Studies 3 and 4). These bidirectional causal links between loyalty and exploitation have the potential to create a vicious circle of suffering. We discuss the implications of these results for obtaining a reputation for loyalty.