Workplace bonds: Transactions or relations?

Imagine yourself eating a fabulous meal that consists of all your favourite dishes. If it were a restaurant, you would have generously tipped the waiters. However, your mother gets paid in compliments.

Nature is full of these transactional bonds which are clear and reciprocal. The Egyptian plover bird, commonly known as the crocodile bird, sits in a crocodile’s mouth without the fear of getting mauled. In exchange, the crocodile gets free dental cleaning.

On the other hand, humans are complex. They form transactional and relational bonds. Our societies have written and unwritten rules governing these bonds.

A relationship may begin with a transaction but we start looking for a relational bond which has a component of trust. The reason for this could probably be anthropological as thriving and survival are possible where we have formed relational bonds. This is why tribal affiliations are strong relational bonds.

Humans use familiarity as a surrogate of trust and form relational bonds where there is familiarity. Companies sponsor sporting or entertainment events for this particular reason. All kinds of advertising, brand and celebrity associations are precisely for the same reason.

This is why hiring managers tend to hire employees from reputed companies or people they have worked with before.

Of course, many times humans manipulate the relational component to gain a transactional advantage. A warm birthday wish with flowers from your bank’s relational manager is perhaps a way to outweigh the transactional component of a business such as the rate of interest or banking fees.

Once a relational bond strengthens, does it relegate the transactional component to the backstage? What will an additional transactional bond such as money do to the relational bond?

Experiment with bonds

The study from Israel has shown an interesting interplay between these two bonds. A chain of daycare centres conducted these experiments. Parents would make every effort to arrive on time so that caretakers did not have to stay late waiting for the parents.

A balance of common courtesy and fear of how their child could be treated if they are late ensured that most parents arrived on time to pick up their children.

The administrator of the daycare decided to impose a small penalty of about $3 on the parents who came late to pick up their children. After this, the late pick-ups that were about 20 in a week simply doubled.

The school finally reversed their decision and removed the financial penalty. However, it failed to impact the late-coming pattern. Money broke the relational bond and the daycare had to contend with latecomers for a long time.

Would a larger late fee change the equation? One would never know.

It probably reveals that transactional bonds are easier to understand for humans since the consequences are clear. It is easy to see transactional bonds when we engage with each other in society or workplaces, but relational bonds are a little difficult to see.

When to see which bond?

If you are signing up for a three-year service agreement with a car company, you can check if the deal you are signing up for has a good mix of transactional and relational parts. Does it have just a bunch of relational bonds like a hot cup of coffee in the VIP lounge? Or does it have good transactional components like discounts on spare parts and labour costs comparable with other offers?

If you are running a business, you may realise that the ideal way to keep your customer rooted would be to combine the relational and transactional sides of your business.

1000s of people have lost their jobs in recent months. Loss of a regular income affects employees and the employees have to cut costs to survive. The breakdown of relational bonds such as team camaraderie and a sense of belonging to a company is harder to reconcile with.

Yet, in such cases, it is better to see the transactional side. As humans we are resilient. We will keep forming, breaking or modifying these bonds in our quest to thrive in life and our careers.

You don’t need rules of grammar to form perfect sentences in a language that you are comfortable with. However, a working understanding of it will help you communicate better. Similarly, a working understanding of these bonds and how they make you feel can help you manage your world a little better. It could add more clarity to your thinking and decision-making process.