Study finds overlooked workplace gestures can carry real costs

Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli explains how receiving a birthday card late can negatively impact an employee's performance.

A forgotten birthday card may seem trivial, something most people are told to shrug off and move on from, but new research suggests those small moments of feeling overlooked at work can carry consequences.

A study from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania finds that even minor lapses in employee recognition can significantly reduce productivity, increasing absenteeism and cutting back working hours.

The research examined detailed data from a retail chain where it was customary for store managers to give employees a birthday and greeting card. The practice was informal rather than written policy, but it was widely expected and consistently followed — until in some cases, it wasn’t.

Researchers found that when a birthday card arrived late, employee absenteeism jumped by more than 50 per cent, while working hours dropped by more than two hours per month.

Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli, who conducted the study with Liat Eldor and Michal Hodor of Tel Aviv University’s Coller School of Management, said the team wasn’t initially focused on birthday cards at all.

“The reason this was interesting is it’s a really small thing, and it still matters,” Cappelli told CTVNews.ca in a Zoom interview Monday. “What we found was that, if the cards were late, it affected people’s performance. They didn’t have a lot of performance measures, but two that they had: one was absenteeism … and the other was hours of work.”

While the effect wasn’t permanent, it was noticeable.

“It turned out that once they got their card, they calmed down, but until they got it, they were irritated by this,” he said.

To understand whether employees actually viewed the missed gesture as mistreatment, the researchers also conducted a survey of 200 retail workers with similar demographics to the study sample.

Participants were asked to imagine a workplace where birthday gifts and cards were standard, but their birthday passed without acknowledgement.

About three-quarters of respondents (74.5 per cent) said they would feel hurt or offended. Most also reported feeling annoyed, disrespected, insulted or overlooked, often “to a great extent.”

The study also explored whether delayed birthday cards could be explained by managers intentionally withholding them to punish poor performance or signal dissatisfaction. To test that, the researchers surveyed 58 store managers and 35 human resources professionals.

Managers and HR professionals said birthday cards would not be deliberately delayed as a form of mistreatment. More than 90 per cent of managers strongly agreed they would not withhold a card due to performance or conflict, while HR respondents said delays were more likely caused by workload or logistical issues, rather than intentional behaviour.

That gap between intention and perception, Cappelli said, is central to the findings.

“I think the punchline here is that it is not something that people would do on purpose, but it is something that people care about,” Cappelli said.

From a management perspective, a missed card may feel inconsequential. From an employee’s point of view, it can feel personal.

“If you’re the employee, you’re thinking, it only takes a minute to hand me the card. How busy could you be?” Cappelli said. “People start to take things for granted and if you take things away, they get really upset.”

Cappelli pointed to remote work as a modern example of how quickly norms can become expectations.

“The big question is about their discretionary effort,” he said. “And the way we try to get people to look after our interests, if we are an employer, is if we persuade them that we are looking after their interests.”