It was very much part of the work environment where I worked , so yeah it happened all too often there. For a while I even tried the "if you canāt beat them join them " approach but I just couldnāt pull off the butteringā¦its just not my style !
But if I had unlimited authority I would say that for a department to function certain responsibilites should be left to a neutral third party who is uninvolved with the daily interaction with staff so they can make unbiased and objective decisons like alloting work and duties fairly and equally. It was and is one of the biggest complaints in a department with more than one employee having similar postions so delegating things fairly becomes a chore and there is always bias.
Either a Dept Head should be a little removed from the general workforce and uninfluenced by them but that is never possible so it always helps to have things like Promotions , Task Assignments , Duties alloted through a PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND PRIVILEGE ASSIGNMENT TOOLā¦ where x number of hours put in entitles you to y privilege or acquiring qualification A entitles you to Promotion B.
Eliminates human bias and the need to get a "recommendation and butter someone to get what you want .
Fair For All , Transparent and Applicable !***