Respect in the Workplace

[Alexandra Rutherford]

In a respectful workplace, employees are…

 More satisfied with their jobs
 More grateful for—and loyal to—their companies
 More resilient
 Cooperate more with others
 Perform better and more creatively
 Are more likely to take direction from their leaders
Conversely, a lack of respect can inflict real damage. Research1 supports this assertion…
 80% of employees treated uncivilly spend significant work time ruminating on the bad behaviour
 48% deliberately reduce their effort
 Disrespectful treatment often spreads among co‐workers and is taken out on customers
According to this same research, employees value two distinct types of respect:
OWED RESPECT EARNED RESPECT
Descriptor

 It meets the universal need to feel included
 It is accorded equally to all members of a work group or an organisation
 It meets the need to be valued for doing good work
How do we know when it’s present?
 It is signaled by civility
 The atmosphere suggests that every member of the group is inherently valuable
 Recognizing Individual employees who display valued qualities or behaviours
 Distinguishing employees who have exceeded expectations
 Affirming (particularly in knowledge work settings) that each employee has unique strengths and talents
How do we know when it’s lacking?
 Tayloristic over monitoring and micromanagement
 Incivility and abuse of power
 A sense that employees are interchangeable
 Stealing credit for others’ success
 Failing to recognize employees’ achievements
What happens if there’s too much of this type of respect?
 Individual achievement may be seen as a low priority, as perception will be that everyone is treated the same regardless of performance
 Risks reducing motivation and accountability
 Can encourage excessive competition among employees
 It could hinder people from sharing critical knowledge about their successes and failures
 It often promotes cutthroat, zero‐sum behaviour
1 https://hbr.org/2018/07/do‐your‐employees‐feel‐respected
Alexandra Rutherford, MBA
Building a respectful workplace2
As a manager, start with an awareness that these two types of respect exist, and pay attention to their ongoing interplay – i.e. having a pulse on how people are perceiving things, and when the balance between both types of respect might be off.
Owed respect
A foundation of owed respect is critical; when that’s there, people feel safe, they can be vulnerable, they can try things out, they can be creative. The key is making sure that the foundation of owed respect is not at risk at any point, because when that falls apart it becomes really difficult to repair.
How to start looking at owed respect:
Look at the current organisational culture. Is this a place where everyone feels that no matter what they do, they’re all going to be treated the same way? Or is this a place right now where people feel that if they share their best practices, someone else’s work may undermine theirs?
Suggestion –
establish clear performance standards:
Keep people from comparing themselves to others by making performance standards incredibly clear and making it clear to employees that they are competing against a standard, not against one another. Tell employees what the goal is, what is expected of them, and where they are right now relative to the goal. This clarity can protect the owed respect dynamic and avoid the angsts of social comparisons that can breed competition.
Earned respect
How to start looking at earned respect:
Look at the business needs and context. Do you need people to really work collaboratively right now? Should you reward them as a team, praise them as a unit? Or is this a time when you’re really looking for individual contributors to thrive?
Suggestion –
form relationships:
If managers take the time to form relationships or be in close contact with their employees, employees will feel like, yes, this person can give me recognition. If that contact is missing, employees wonder how their manager is going to give recognition if they don’t really have any idea what is happening day to day or how
things are going. That perceived distance can be very troubling for employees.
Suggestion –
bring values to life:
Employees are incredibly attentive to the values of a company, and seeing whether or not those values come to life. If a manager behaves in any way that
contradicted the values, and that is observable to employees, respect cues lose their credibility after that. Employees will say I don’t really find this person
believable; I don’t see them as being a credible source of information. So, if that manager then says you’re doing a great job, or I really value your work, it’s not as
meaningful as if that manager was viewed as really representing what the company is all about.
2 https://hbr.org/ideacast/2018/07/the‐2‐types‐of‐respect‐leaders‐must‐show
Alexandra Rutherford, MBA
Here are additional ways in which leaders and managers can convey owed and earned respect:
1. Establish a baseline of owed respect.
2. Know how to convey respect in your particular workplace.
3. Recognize that respect has ripple effects.
4. Customize the amount of earned respect you convey.
5. Think of respect as infinite.
6. See respect as a time saver, not a time waster.
7. Know when efforts to convey respect can backfire.

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