To minimise social loafing or free-riding, teams can partition the task early enough by assigning various parts and tasks to individual group members. The group can generate a list of who’s doing what, distribute the list to all group members, and then include a copy with the final task indicating if and when group members delivered. In addition, setting intermediate deadlines on tasks, like when the research will be done or when the first drafts of documents will be finalised. Then if a member doesn’t deliver, the team still have time to resolve the problem.

Teams should not confirm free-riding behaviors by accepting excuses offered by the team member who arrives unprepared. In this case, team members should listen to the excuse and discuss as a team what needs to be done and give the member clear instructions as to what needs to be delivered and when.

This is a complex process. This point should be considered at the time of forming team and follow some strict procedures.

1) Select them based on skills, and group cohesiveness

2) Establish clear rules of behavior

3) Set and seize upon a few immediate performance oriented goals and tasks

4) Spend time together

5) Develop a common understanding

In order to keep the team productive

1) All members understand the purpose

2) The members feel it is exciting

3) The goals are clear, simple and measurable

4) The goals are realistic

5) The approach is clear

In my opinion, discrimination and reward who works honestly would be a good effect for others to go forward. On the other hand, Generalizing evaluation the whole group (such as saying: the percentage of contributions or accomplishments is very low in a group) will give bad Influence toward sincere members.

Dear Mahfuz

With the emergence of civilizations, were the social riders, members of society who live off the work of others. We must create mechanisms in order to reduce this social parasitism and the law of least effort and thus prevent the proliferation of social predators who use multiple devices to reduce their labor activity burdening others and disrupting the group. A possible solution is a specific function for each member.

This can be minimized by setting in place the rules on rewards and incentives and accountability at the team/group level.

I think the the following can be done for minimizing the incidence of social loafing in groups:

1. Carefully select the team/group members on the basis of attitude, and not on any extraneous considerations.

2. Each person's competencies and areas of interest should be identified.

3. Clearly allocate the work among groups members on the basis of interest and competencies with clear deadlines and accountability. This will enhance the degree of cooperation among members.

4. How to deal with those who deviate from the shared goals should be made clear to one and all, and the rules should be enforced as well, and not overlooked.

5. The group should should meet for informal meetings as well where the work progress can be discussed intermittent intervals; this will create peer pressure on every one..

1. Held Achievement Motivation Training

2. Building trust and empathy

3. Provide "carrot and stick" proportionally

In RG the members are mature and mean business, the communication and interaction is also modest, I find its very professional.. Keep Going..

Teams and team playing is usually hindered by many factors attributed to differences between team members in abilities, interests, culture,etc., while these differences are not taken into consideration. A member in a team incapable to deliver in a team, for example, can result in, in addition to be unable to deliver, that this member will try to make use of the works of others. Hence, careful selection of team members with clearly assigned responsibilities and expectations that match their capabilities can help alleviate team loafing problem. Thanks. @AlDmour.

1) Identify strength and weakness of each member

2) Identify personal interests of each member

3) shift members based on strength and personal interests

4)a clear job description for each member

5)give token of appreciation for who has complete the job

I think that this paper "Discouraging Social Loafing During Team-Based Assessments" is fine reading and may help to minimize social loafing in groups!

http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=tips

Nice question Mahfuz!

Social loafing is a great problem in countries developed by the old soviet central state model, just like Greece was till now. In these countries loafing is a national sport among public servants, so the special care has to be taken for those workers mainly.

Private sector is more competitive and loafing, although exists, cannot last for a long time, since "firing" is the result!

A group member normally resort to social loafing due to less/non-recognition of his/her contribution or in a situation when his/her contribution is attributed to some one else. Being an emotional creature the employee will create a self directed variation in expected outcome and wanted outcome ultimately affecting the group outcome. If the institutions institutionalize a culture of ownership building wherein the contributor have the feeling of ownership of the assignment, group members will feel motivated and committed leading to decrease in the menace of and ill effects of social loafing.

In my point of views we can we minimize social loafing in groups.

For doing so, manager should divide the work and assign some work to each worker and then appreciate the member who has efficiently completed his work and also give some perks to them. By seeing this all those workers who exert less effort will learn some lesson and start putting more effort in their work.

Regards,

Nitish

Take a look in this conditions under which social loafing in groups is eliminated!

it has been shown through simulations that punishing social loafing (or a threat for punishment) reduced loafing. simulations were conducted on a population of artificial agents , a random percentage of which were rendered as loafers.  also, another percentage of agents were 'punishing' if they detected the loafers.

Acts of Social Loafing in industrial setup tantamount to Indiscipline and incurs punishment when proven.

"Time of Human Resource availability" within the work premises is liable for payment and hence the Sum of Actual engagement time at work plus allowances with permissible work tolerances is the effective utilization of the resource.

This effective utilization is rounded up and equated as Time related Payment. However, any activity which delays the lead time of Contribution will get related to performance contribution and get exposed.

In contra to the above the Loafers characteristic are

• Skilled at work
• People oriented
• Fun Lovers
• Mischievous
• Inquisitive

Dear Vikas. I agree with the policy you mentioned, "it has been shown through simulations that punishing social loafing (or a threat for punishment) reduced loafing".

This is one of the main policies you can follow.

In the paper attached it was shown that "Punishment threats, however, did not decrease the social loafing effect. This data suggests that the tendency for individuals to social loaf is so strong that it persists even when under threats of punishment."

http://legacy.jyi.org/volumes/volume10/issue3/articles/kunishima.html

The tendency to social loafing is established in the mind of the loafers. They have learned this behaviour in early times during their education and have constructed techniques to ignore threats and punishments.  So I don´t believe that you will find easy answers how to change the "loafers". One chance would be a solidary reaction of the collegues, but this can easily degenerate to mobbing.

Dear Hanno, 

I think that the solid reaction from the colleagues or the group members would be effective in reducing the tendency to social loafing.

i think this is interesting: social punishment led to females compensating but males to loaf more.

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/23/7/693.short

Dear Mahfuz,

you are right, but how to control it?