Decades of research have shown the positive impact of highly perceived fairness in the workplace on worker productivity and morale. One such cause of this perceived fairness is known as status incongruence, or when an employee's supervisor lacks traditional signifiers of higher status, such as being more advanced in age, education, or tenure at the company.
Such status incongruence has been on the rise in the workplace for a while, thanks in part to the growing tech industry, which is dominated by young workers, as well as the aging workforce.
“Many people are working longer,” says Joel Brockner, the Philip Hettleman Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. “People who would have retired—and therefore been out of the workforce—stick around, so you have more older people in the workplace and more of a likelihood of status incongruence.”