Business is competitive. Companies vie for customer attention. Employees compete for promotions, and candidates contend for the best job openings.
In this environment, respect and kindness can give way to disrespect, discourtesy, and incivility.
Yet, the benefits of maintaining a respectful workplace are immense. It can lead to increased employee engagement, higher job satisfaction, reduced employee turnover, better collaboration between workers, decreased stress levels, and a less biased culture.
How can you balance business success with respect in the workplace and reap these benefits? Below, we’ll consider three distinct scenarios: the role of employment lawyers in the corporate world, how school counselors can influence academic work environments, and how respect shown to customers also plays a role.
Big Business: Do You Need an Employment Lawyer?
Employment lawyers are charged with an important task: helping businesses navigate the complexities of employment law while maintaining a peaceful and respectful workplace.
In addition to legal compliance, employment lawyers, including the best sexual harassment lawyer NYC, handle cases involving age and gender discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, overtime standards, and contract disputes.
If you feel your workplace could use a respectful tune-up, how can employment lawyers help?
- Policy development—Employment lawyers can draft comprehensive workplace policies promoting respect, inclusivity, anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, accommodations for disabilities, and equal opportunity. They can also ensure that the policies are accessible, clear, and adequately communicated to all employees.
- Training—Lawyers can also implement training programs to help employees learn about their rights and responsibilities concerning employment law, such as recognizing and preventing harassment in the workplace, communicating respectfully, and diversity training.
- Conflict resolution—When conflicts do occur, employment lawyers can provide mediation services, ensuring that all disputes are handled fairly and in compliance with established legal standards. This, in turn, fosters trust in the company’s conflict resolution processes and in its commitment to maintaining a respectful work environment.
Are you a lawyer looking to make a difference? Experience in other law fields can translate easily to a career shift to employment law. You can download a lawyer CV template for Microsoft Word or a PDF file, then highlight instances where you dealt successfully with cases involving bias, harassment, or discrimination.
Don’t Forget to Respect Your Customers
An oft-repeated maxim claims that “the customer is always right.” While this is not implicitly true, the lesson is that customers and their requests should always be considered with dignity and respect.
A culture of respect can be enhanced by extensive customer service training. Consider a technology-driven example.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital systems for ordering everything from fast food to groceries increased dramatically—even in traditionally in-person environments. According to a survey by Koala, a restaurant-focused smartphone app provider, around 70 percent of customers actually prefer digital interactions.
But it has been observed that with this shift came a lack of courtesy and respect toward customers. Older customers who were less technologically agile experienced alarm when not only was there no cashier to greet them at their favorite fast food establishments but they were often ignored for five minutes or more when standing at the counter.
One Taco Bell manager set out to remedy this. He taught his shift managers and other employees to call out a greeting as customers entered the building. If customers were seen waiting for a mobile order, they were asked their names and given their drink cups in advance of their order.
He also taught them to “go the extra mile” to make customers happy. For instance, they could offer samples of sweet drinks to families with children. Once, when an ingredient needed for a delivery item was out of stock, the manager asked the delivery driver to inquire what substitution would be acceptable. “I’ll make them anything on the menu,” he said, not regarding the price of the original item.
The result? A restaurant that is busy with customers and an environment in which the respect and courtesy shown to customers overflows into the employees’ interactions with one another. Happy customers and happy staff make for a better work environment.
The lesson? When respect is fostered in one aspect of a business, it affects the entire company culture for the better.
Fostering Respectful Academic Work Environments
Often instrumental in maintaining respectful academic environments are onsite counselors—not just for the students but also for the educators and other staff that work there. How?
Individual Counseling and Support
School counselors often work one-on-one with students, offering personalized guidance on academic issues, problems at home, and interpersonal conflicts such as bullying. They also help students build self-esteem and feel safe and comfortable at school.
When this is accomplished, students are less likely to act out in class or lash out at teachers and other students. This promotes a peaceful and respectful classroom environment in which teachers can focus on doing their jobs well rather than on disciplining unruly students.
Diversity and Cultural Awareness
Teachers and school staff members come from many different backgrounds just as their students do. School counselors can promote cultural sensitivity—being aware of the differences that exist between people without assigning them positive or negative values—through inclusive curriculum design, diversity workshops for both staff and students, and cultural awareness programs.
As a culture of empathy develops, teachers—especially those from diverse backgrounds—will receive more respect from both students and fellow staff members.
Safe Spaces and Conflict Resolution
The guidance counselor’s office is often regarded as a safe space where students can express themselves freely. Teachers may likewise require a listening ear to which they can express their concerns.
Counselors are often called upon to mediate conflicts between students. Their skills, including collaborative problem-solving, empathy, and active listening, can also be put to use when interpersonal conflicts arise between teachers or between teachers and their students.
Key Takeaways
Today we’ve examined three examples of how businesses can balance success and respect. Companies large and small may solicit the services of an employment lawyer to outline policies, train staff, and mediate disputes. School counselors accomplish something similar in an educational institution; the training and attention they give to students benefit the teachers and staff as well. Finally, we observed how promoting respectful treatment of customers in a fast-food restaurant increased sales and improved the overall culture.
Can you apply any of these specific activities to your business? If you do so, you will observe a steady shift to a more respectful workplace.
