The Unequal Rewards of Peer Support at Work

Research shows that men benefit more from supporting colleagues than do women

- Nancy Baym and Constance Noonan Hadley

SUPPORTIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH COL-leagues are critical to job satisfaction, retention, and productivity - but with the dramatic shift to remote work over the past few years, those ties have weakened for many employees. Our latest research suggests that as leaders focus on strengthening organizational culture and encouraging social ties, they should proceed with greater care and intentionality than they have in the past. The results of our investigation indicate that men may be earning a higher return on their social investments at work than women are.

Concerns about inequity in the way relationships are built and maintained in organizations are not new. Community-building and social support activities are rarely written into job descriptions or compensated, making them easy to overlook. Scholarship has previously highlighted the likelihood of gender bias in expectations and rewards for "organizational citizenship" and "emotional labor" behaviors at work. For example, research found that women are more likely than men to be asked to engage in extra-role activities such as organizing a holiday party, and they are more likely to say yes when asked - often at a cost to their career progression and job satisfaction.³ We set out to investigate employees' experiences investing in and their career benefits for providing multiple forms of social support to coworkers. (See "The Research.") We conducted a survey in late 2020, a time when social support was especially important. We collected data from 836 U.S.-based office workers across a variety of roles, company sizes, and industries. In order to explore equity issues, we recruited a split sample, with 438 men (52%) and 398 women (48%).

What Kinds of Social Support Do Men and Women Offer?