Intro
I pay a lot of attention to the words and phrases that managers use. Not too long ago, a manager told me that he treats all his employees “fairly and equally”. The manner in which the manager used this phrase bothered me. I wondered does he think that fairness and equality are the same thing? Did he use the phrase absent-mindedly (narrator: yes)? How would his employees react if you asked if the manager was fair and/or equal?
A recent article about how companies are handling 401(k) matches brought this memory to the forefront. As you can tell from the questions I was asking in the first paragraph, fair and equal are the same thing. I don’t make value judgements on either, but it is clear that they are not the same thing.