The Benefits of a Calling

Managers might be misperceiving calling-oriented employees’ levels of performance and this might affect how the managers decided to reward those employees.

• Calling-oriented employees tend to volunteer to perform extra tasks, so managers might extrapolate these signals to see them as more self-driven, hardworking, and committed. 
• Managers tend to judge employee performance and commitment based on easily available information rather than a detailed assessment on output or results. 
• The sense of obligation to reward good deeds is a moral and social norm, but by adhering to it without adequate information managers can end up rewarding “good” behaviors that don’t actually benefit the company.