By Zahid Majeed Sherazi
ISLAMABAD, Jan 16 (APP): As Pakistan’s corporate sector grapples with rising competition for skilled talent and mounting pressure to improve performance, organisational justice, long treated as a soft management concept, is gaining renewed attention as a practical requirement for sustainable
growth.
Across boardrooms and offices, disputes over promotions, performance appraisals, workloads and leave approvals often hinge on a single, unspoken question among employees about the fairness of process. Analysts say when perceptions of fairness weaken, organisations face familiar consequences declining engagement, reluctance to take initiative and an erosion of trust in leadership.
Organisational justice refers to fairness in outcomes, decision-making processes, and interpersonal treatment.
According to experts, inconsistency in any of these pillars can undermine productivity and innovation, even in otherwise well-resourced companies.
Dr Uzma Ismail, a London-based management and HR scholar, argues that Pakistan’s corporate sector will struggle to achieve sustained performance gains unless fairness is embedded as a core HR policy objective. “You can’t expect high performance from people who don’t trust the process,” she says. “Fairness is not about pleasing everyone, it’s about predictable, explainable decisions and respectful treatment.”
Dr Ismail’s perspective draws on professional experience in both Pakistan and the United Kingdom. In Pakistan, she has held HR roles in private-sector industries including textiles and technology, and has taught management at the higher education level. These roles, she notes, exposed how unclear criteria and uneven application of rules can quickly damage morale.
Her work in the UK, spanning management education and welfare-oriented operations, reinforced the value of clear standards, outcome tracking and compliance-practices that reduce perceptions of arbitrariness and strengthen HR governance.
Alongside practice, Dr Ismail’s peer-reviewed research focuses on human resource management, organisational justice and innovative work behaviour. The findings suggest a direct link between fairness and innovation: employees are more likely to propose improvements and challenge inefficiencies when they trust evaluation systems and believe opportunities are applied consistently.
“People contribute ideas when they feel safe,” she explains. “That sense of safety comes from fair treatment and clear criteria.”
In practical terms, applying organisational justice as policy requires a structured approach, particularly in people-related decisions. Dr Ismail recommends a three-part “fairness check”: whether outcomes can be justified in plain language, whether processes are defined in advance and applied consistently, and whether communication is delivered with dignity and transparency, even when decisions are unpopular.
She identifies inconsistency as a common weakness in Pakistani organisations. Performance systems falter when standards vary between teams or feedback is limited to annual appraisals. Uneven access to training and weak record-keeping can also become “fairness signals” that employees quickly notice and share.
Evidence suggests that organisations prioritising fairness benefit from clearer role expectations, reduced conflict and stronger retention especially among early-career professionals.
Lessons from Dr Ismail’s work in curriculum design and assessment, where clear criteria consistently improve outcomes, further underscore the relevance of fairness across institutional settings.
As Pakistan’s corporate sector seeks to modernise and compete regionally, experts say organisational justice is evolving into a leadership metric, not just an HR concept. Companies that progress fastest may be those that make fairness visible through transparent criteria, consistent application and respectful communication.
“Policies only work when people experience them the same way,” Dr Ismail says. “That consistency builds trust and trust builds performance.”