Procedural Fairness

As part of the Membership Development team, we focused a lot on member benefits and how they are allocated. This topic commonly lead to discussion about the fairness of procedures on a member basis factoring in title, company size, etc. The idea of Procedural Fairness is something I remembered studying in Theories & Models. I looked back at my notes and procedural fairness and found three theories that followed – instrumental, relational, and fairness heuristic. Looking back now, I feel that what the membership development team was most concerned with falls into the fairness heuristic category: what establishes whether an outcome is fair. During discussion I analyzed how people reacted to the idea of giving some members benefits, and stripping others of benefits. People asked questions of why some deserved this and others didn’t, and also whether it was fair. For example: a corporate company pays more than an associate (law firm), so the membership team wants to provide corporates with a private room during the conferences. This might seem fair at first glance, as they are paying more, but the associates are paying what is asked of them. If they pay less but are still paying what is required of them, does that mean they are not subject to the same benefits as corporates, who are also paying what they’re asking for? Procedural fairness is of the utmost importance in a work environment because it establishes structure and implements a code of ethics that allows a company to run smoothly. Watch a company analyze procedural fairness regarding the treatment of other organizations was something I had never pondered the importance of before, but is an interesting thing to think about.