The Psychology of Change

The Connecticut Employment Law Blog has a nice post discussing "Fairness" May Dictate Workers Views and Outlooks (And Maybe Whether They Sue) and an article in the Washington Post.  On of the authors of the study, Michael Leiter, an organizational psychologist at Acadia University in Nova Scotia said:

"The people who were confident they were working for a fair employer went in a positive direction," he said. "The people who did not have confidence in the employer's fairness tended to go toward burnout."

It's an interesting topic and one that needs to be considered by anyone undertaking corporate changes, such as restructuring or downsizing, or when dealing with individual employment situations. 

Actual and perceived fairness may not stem off a lawsuit or bring about a constant and sustained "positive attitude" among employees, but it will certainly go along way in doing so.  The opposite, that is treating people in an objectively unfair way by, for example, "hoarding information" and not communicating, will do nothing to further the corporate objectives.