Tips On How To Eliminate Social Loafing

While working as a team is beneficial, it has its own challenges. One of these problems is social loafing. Social loafing is when a team member does less work than he or she would have done if he or she would have done the work alone. Here are some of the best ways to eliminate social loafing on a collaborative project:

Measure and Evaluate the Work Done By Each Team Member

Some team members may find it easy to hide in a crowd when it comes to collaborative projects. As such, it is good to make every team member stand out. You can do this by dividing tasks in a way that measures the work done by every member instead of the whole team.

Evaluating each team member’s performance from time to time will make every team member know that their work is being monitored and individual contributions matter. However, you should focus on letting employees know how well they are doing and appreciating them for their work instead of focusing too much on their failures. This will motivate each team member to work extra hard.

Keep Groups Small

It is a good idea to keep groups small as larger groups are more likely to encourage social loafing as it is easy to hide behind the size of the group. When you keep groups small, it will be easy for you to account for every team member’s work.

It has been proven that as the size of a group increases, the effort exerted by team members decreases. Some people think that larger teams mean greater output but this is not the case. Keep groups small and ensure that each group has clear, challenging goals that force each member to contribute.

Let the Team Members Know What You Expect From Them

The best way to do this is to discuss and write job descriptions. Team members should know about your expectations so that they can meet or exceed them as each of the team members will know what you expect him or her to do. Every team member should have a separate and distinct contribution to prevent tasks from becoming fungible.

Every person in the group has to pull his or her own weight. Review the written description with every team member line by line for clear interpretation. This will make it easy for each of the team members to know what you expect from him or her hence preventing social loafing as there is nowhere to hide in a group.

Eliminating social loafing is one of the best ways to create and build effective teams in your organization. The tips above will ensure that each member of the team will be accountable for his or her own work when doing work as part of a team. Potential social loafers will work hard when they believe that they will be found out. Follow the tips mentioned in this article to eliminate social loafing and make sure that teamwork helps your organization achieve its desired results.