“Respect is a feeling when you treat someone well for their qualities or character traits, but respect can also be a manifestation of dignity towards people.”
Respect should be the norm in the workplace, regardless of personal feelings. Team and managers should respect each other as it creates a decent work environment, which increases productivity. It is an essential element in every workplace as it helps the team to work hard as their efforts are appreciated. Team members will not necessarily love or admire the personalities of their leaders or colleagues, but they still need to respect their work to achieve their goals and be professional.
Global CEO of ISS Relocation
Employees value diverse types of respect:
- Respect should be shared equally with all team members.
- Respect is ensured by courtesy and creating a space where each member of the group is valuable.
- Well-earned respect or professional achievement lies in recognizing individual employees for quality tasks performed.
- The manager can highlight employees who have exceeded expectations.
- It is a confirmation that each employee has unique strengths and talents.
- The respect earned meets each person’s need to be judged for superior performance.
Once you understand why respect is important, it becomes even more important. You will begin to understand why your colleagues are responding in certain situations and take steps to create a more positive work environment with everyone involved. When people feel respected, they show respect for others.
Some of the benefits of respect in the workplace are:
- Respect Reduces Stress – Reducing stress is especially important for employees’ health in the workplace. Stress-free employees feel more comfortable sharing ideas and working with colleagues to achieve their goals. Increased respect and reduced stress have mental and physical effects on workers’ health.
- Respect Increases Productivity and Collaboration – Respect helps employees think innovatively and work hard as they know their ideas will be appreciated. Such workplaces become opportunities to learn from each other, where both employees and managers develop their skills. Once your employees start collaborating, crosstraining and informal learning can be done across all areas of your company.
- Employee Satisfaction – Employees can be happy with their work and leave feeling proud of what they have done at the end of the day. This sense of satisfaction from employees can benefit employers overall. Satisfied employees usually want to stay with companies that value them and seek ways to advance or develop their careers. Happy employees are more likely to apply for internal promotions and lead their teams with the same respect and care they value. Lower employee turnover reduces revenue and time spent on training and onboarding.
How to Create a Respectful Environment in the Workplace?
- Do not Gossip at the workplace: If the news is not confirmed, it is inappropriate to provoke discussion of the topic based on rumors. This harmless act can cause worrisome psychological damage to a person, so avoid doing that.
- Do not use Profanity: Even if the intention is good, do not use harsh language or verbally insult someone for any purpose.
- Greet People at Workplace: This is another civilized behavior in workplaces. Even if a person is the busiest person in the world, they will still find time to respond to someone who is greeting with the same empathy. Do not ignore people’s greetings; walking past them without even smiling seems extremely rude.
- Count an Employee Contribution: Appreciating employees’ contribution means that they are performing well, and giving due recognition to the employees’ efforts encourages them to work hard. When employees are attributed, their motivation is increased, and if their challenging work is not appreciated or attributed, they will be disheartened and become less productive.
- Do Not Discriminate Against People: Creating prejudices against a person based on their race, gender, age, intelligence, and appearance should not be promoted at the workplace.
- Do not be Insensitive to Employee Needs: Try to effectively address the feelings and needs of others, such as giving a colleague sick leave or giving maternity leave to someone. This makes employees happy and satisfied with their workplace.
- Distraction During Work: Avoid talking on the phone during a meeting. Not greeting team members and managers are all activities that affect everyone and create a disturbance in the workplace.
- Strong Communication Practice: Do not ignore employees’ phone calls and emails & do not disclose the contents of confidential emails to people outside the organization.
- Defend Employees: Defend your employees and defend them before company management when necessary. If certain mistakes were made in your department, in a conversation with the company’s director, in no case shift the blame on employees, but speak on behalf of the entire department. Some department heads often try to shield themselves personally and blame a particular employee. If you strive to create a strong and friendly team, learn how to intercede with the leadership and solve the problem individually.
The Effects of Lack of Respect at the Workplace – Conversely, a lack of respect can do real damage. Eighty percent of employees who are not respected in the workplace spend considerable time thinking about poor managerial attitudes, and 48% deliberately reduce their performance. Also, disrespect is often spread among colleagues and transferred to clients. In all but the most toxic workplaces, fostering a respectful atmosphere in an organization does not require an HR policy review or other formal changes. Instead, there is a need to constantly search for different methods by which respect can become an important part of the workplace.
Disrespect leads directly to a serious loss of productivity, as a huge amount of time is spent on conflicts or trying to resolve them. Rude behavior, inappropriate tone, inappropriate activities such as being late for appointments, sending rude and unwanted emails to colleagues, gossiping, manipulating clients and colleagues with misinformation, and wasting time surfing the internet, instead of work. Also, it can escalate into illegal dismissal or harassment lawsuits.
Ignorance at the Workplace – When employees ignore their colleagues or opinions, those who are not respected tend to be defensive, making it difficult for them to trust someone at work. In such an atmosphere, everyone feels a little hostile, which indirectly affects their productivity and performance at the workplace. When managers ignore their employees or deny their opinions, they become unproductive as they constantly ignore to appreciate their challenging work. According to the Department of Public Human Resources Management of the US National Institutes of Health, effective teams are the foundation of business success, but disrespect from colleagues makes teamwork impossible. People are moving from command consciousness to self-preservation. Rudeness is also insidious because it is difficult to justify. This does not sound like overt verbal abuse or violence, but it leads to a lack of cooperation, open hostility, and mistrust between colleagues.
Impact of a Respectful Work Environment on Business Goals:
- Respectful employees work effectively and produce better and unique ideas that increase an organization’s market share and revenue.
- Respect helps build strong teamwork, which is necessary for generating profit.
- A strong and positive relationship with clients is necessary as it helps increase revenue, and a respectful work environment helps employees work effectively to achieve maximum client satisfaction.
- A respectful work environment helps employees share their ideas and concepts without fear, and such interactive workplaces can easily stand out in a competitive market.
- Reducing politics in the workplace will also help increase the productivity of teams.
- Respect for the workplace will help improve communication between colleagues, improve teamwork, and reduce stress as the workplace is peaceful.
Give respect and get respect!