COLUMBUS – How eager are you to help out a co-worker? A new study by researchers at Ohio State shows it may have to do with which rung the two of you occupy on the corporate ladder.
Workers are most likely to help their colleagues if they see them as “moderately distant” from themselves in status, either above or below.
Too close is too close for comfort; too far is too much trouble.
“The sweet spot for helping seems to be those who are moderately distant from you in status,” says Sarah Doyle, a doctoral student at the Fisher College of Business, who has co-authored the study which appears online in the journal Academy of Management Discoveries and will be published in a future print edition.
“Someone near you in status poses more of a threat. The help you provide could help them pass you in status, or make it more difficult for you to pass them,” she said.
Those who are far above or below you in status could require a lot more time and effort to help, which could hurt your own job performance, she said.
“We found that people are generally willing to lend a hand. It is not a story of withholding assistance. It is more about who are you most likely to go out of your way to help,” said Robert Lount, another co-author of the study and an associate professor of management and human resources at the school.
He suggests that the findings might be useful when assigning people to train new employees.
“You might want to avoid assigning the most recently hired employee to train the newcomer,” he said. “If that relative newcomer is worried about his or her status in the organization, they may be less than helpful with this new person who could surpass them.”
Doyle noted that while many organizations consider whether to flatten or expand hierarchies at their firms, the study suggests the question may often be more complex than assumed.