It is quite challenging to be successful and work on your career at the same time. Now imagine a situation where you provide excellent performance, outsmart your coworkers, and do everything right, but somehow you get overlooked for the open position.

When executives and managers play favorites, it can significantly affect the business and create anger and dissatisfaction among employees. However, you shouldn’t be surprised, since favoritism is quite common in big companies, and it can be hard to determine the reasons behind this action.

Therefore, we will discuss signs of favoritism at work and how you should behave in such a situation.

The best project

It has been a couple of weeks since your colleague finished one interesting project, which involved traveling to some amazing places. However, now he received another great project. This situation is highly frustrating for some employees, when the same person gets the projects all the time, while you are left behind.

However, be aware that there is a thin line between merely trusting one person and playing favorites. In some cases, your boss might not be favoring another employee over you, but he just wants to utilize the set of skills this worker has to offer.

Business trips

It is a pretty common sign that someone is a favorite person when he or she is going on frequent business trips with executives. However, besides mission out fancy hotels and delicious dinners, there is nothing to worry about, right?

However, many people believe that sharing learning opportunities with all employees equally is crucial for professional development. But, when the boss plays favorites, other workers don’t have a chance to experience positive changes. So, insisted on sitting in the office, employees who prove themselves should gain networking opportunities as well.

The trusted advice

When you notice that your executives are open towards ideas and suggestions of a particular employee, then this could be one of the signs of favoritism, especially if these suggestions aren’t valid or could harm your company.

However, when your boss asks for the suggestion, it means he respects someone else’s judgment or idea. While there is nothing wrong with this concept, some questions need to ask if the same person repeatedly provides “trusted advice.”

Lack of control

This is probably the most common sign of favoritism at work. When an employee isn’t scrutinized for his performance, or he is never criticized, it seems that he is treated equally as executives. This often includes situations when worker speaks out of place, or he gets a chance to perform an unsupervised job, while everyone else is subjected to performance reviews.

However, you should be quite cautious regarding your suspicions. For example, an employee who’s been in the company for the last 20 years is obviously going to be treated differently, then a worker who just started. Therefore, we can’t say this a favoritism, but sensible management.

However, it might become an issue when there are more employees who are at the same level of experience and competence. In this way, executives are creating an unhealthy working environment.

Opportunities and perks

It isn’t a big deal when someone else is given the company box tickets or the premier of your favorite movie, and somehow you were left behind. Many people tend to overlook these types of situations, but it’s a clear sign of favoritism.

Therefore, if the same person receives all the time different company perks, gifts, rewards, tickets, and even discounts, then things are a bit shady. If your boss or manager has a gift to share with employees, then he should send a blanket email across the offer, not just select a few individuals.