Every worker, whether a carpenter on a construction site or a researcher in a lab, has a clear role to play. But should helping colleagues be part of that role? And more importantly, should helping others be formally included in human resources (HR) policies, influencing pay and promotions?

A study from Cambridge Judge Business School looks into this question by reviewing past research and proposing a practical model to weigh the pros and cons of making helping part of formal HR policies. The findings show that while these policies can increase how often employees help each other, they may also lower the quality of that help.

Formalized help

When helping is tied to formal evaluations, motivation shifts. Instead of helping out of genuine desire, employees are more likely to help in ways that promote themselves. As a result, they focus on the visible aspects, like how often they help, rather than on how effective their help is. Supervisors, in turn, tend to rely more on the frequency of helping when evaluating performance, often overlooking the quality.

“In companies with formal helping policies, managers tend to pay more attention to how often employees help, because it’s easy to measure, but they miss the quality of that help,” the authors explain. “Employees motivated by self-interest may give the bare minimum assistance to boost their image, without making sure the help is actually useful.”

The research, which included both an online exercise and a year-long field experiment, defines helping as actions aimed at promoting harmony, completing tasks, and building relationships. While helping is usually considered an informal, extra role, it’s well known to benefit both the helper and the person being helped.

Changing nature

However, when helping becomes part of an employee’s formal job description, the nature of it changes. Intrinsic motivation—helping because it feels good—drops when the task is monitored and rewarded, partly because it limits the sense of autonomy that fuels genuine helping.

“As soon as helping is tracked, evaluated, and rewarded, motivation shifts from being self-driven to being tactical, shaped by set rules,” the researchers say.

The study also highlights a trade-off between how often employees help and how well they do it. Formal policies may encourage shallow, frequent helping instead of meaningful assistance. High-quality help takes more effort and time, which can be sidelined when employees are focused on quick, visible actions to improve their performance evaluations.

To address this, the researchers suggest that supervisors strike a balance. Overemphasizing frequency leads to shallow helping, but putting too much focus on quality can overwhelm employees. Managers can improve evaluations by regularly checking in on both how much help is given and how effective that help is.

In practical terms, the researchers recommend that managers learn what kind of help is most useful to employees and focus on that when assessing both the quantity and quality of help in the workplace.