People exert less effort to achieve goals when they work in a group than when they work alone. This is called, Social Loafing. Source
But, what can be the cause of the social loafing, and how did the social loafing impact your team’s performance?
In our case, when the team is challenging to solve problems, they are organized to find the best option of a number of alternatives. However, in many cases, only a few numbers of individuals take the responsibility to carry out of this kind of task. We can noted that in groups of 4-5 engineers, just 2-3 really work to accomplish with goals. For instance, in a short project which objective was diagnosing possible problems and then, optimizing production, 5 individuals were assigned toward on. But, just 2 or 3 really worked on this. The others simply hold till the project is finished and their contribution were minimum.
Our strategy to avoid this kind of problem at work consists of assigning tasks that are unique and meaningful to the teammates. These tasks will be assigned during meeting with all of team members present. Hence, teammates will take responsibility in front of all of the staff. Moreover, contributions made will be identifiable and good words are going to be say to good individual performance.
As usual, I hope you can take some insights in order to better manage teams in your work.
Best Regards
