杏吧原创

鈥淚鈥檝e always prided myself on my can-do attitude,鈥� a reader told me this month. 鈥淩ecently, however, I鈥檝e started to feel resentful of the amount of work my boss puts at my door compared to colleagues. The more I do, the more he seems to expect of me, and I now feel that I鈥檓 cracking under the stress.鈥�

Our reader鈥檚 frustration is surely justified. A good work ethic should be one of the most highly prized 鈥� and rewarded 鈥� qualities in an employee. Everyday experience, though, reveals this is rarely the case. Indeed, according to by at the National University of Singapore and his colleagues, a pernicious bias can lead managers to exploit the very people they should be prizing.

In one experiment, a group of managers were asked to read about a fictional employee named John, whose company was facing financial difficulties. They had to decide how willing they would be to give John extra hours and responsibilities without any extra pay. The researchers found that the managers were far more willing to do so if they learned that John had proved to be a loyal member of the team 鈥� compared with someone who was known to be more detached from their work.

Further studies confirmed that small displays of loyalty encouraged managers to take this attitude: the more 鈥淛ohn鈥� gives, the more his managers will take. As Stanley and his co-authors note, this could create a 鈥渧icious cycle鈥� of suffering 鈥� while less loyal workers manage to escape the sacrifices. But before you start viewing your boss too harshly, it is worth noting that Stanley and his colleagues don鈥檛 believe that the managers are conscious of their behaviour, instead regarding this as a form of 鈥渆thical blindness鈥�.

This may be compounded by the fact that many of us to turn down extra responsibilities for fear of seeming disagreeable. If we are to break free from that pattern of behaviour, we need to learn how to say no. Research by at Cornell University in New York state suggests it is than in voice-to-voice or face-to-face conversations. If the request comes in person, or on the phone, I have found that it helps to ask whether you can check your schedule before agreeing. That small delay should prevent a knee-jerk 鈥測es鈥�, and if you want to refuse, it gives you time to formulate a polite response. Try to use assertive language. Saying 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have time鈥� is than 鈥淚 can鈥檛 make time鈥�, for example, since it is simply reflecting the reality of your situation, rather than apologising for your inability to create more hours in the day.

But I can鈥檛 help think the onus should be on our managers to change their behaviour. A little self-awareness about their tendency to exploit their hardest workers might lead them to rethink how they reward that loyalty.

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David Robson is an award-winning science writer and聽author of The Laws of Connection: 13 social strategies that will transform your life