Respect is the Key to Employees Feeling Valued
Thank you to Dr. Davana Pilczuk of The Human Performance Group for this article. Dr. Pilczuk is an award-winning kinesiologist who specializes in human performance. She is a speaker, writer and consultant for Fortune 500 companies, sports teams and small businesses. For more expert advice, check out Dr. Pilczuk’s recent article on burnout.
Ask any employee what’s most important to them, and the word “respect” will most likely hit the list. People, regardless of age or experience, want to be treated a certain way to feel valued in their place of business. Respect is frequently seen in vision statements and discussed openly at staff meetings. However, most employees can say they have felt quite the opposite on numerous occasions.
What is respect?
According to a 2018 article in the Harvard Business Review, respect is shown in two ways. Owed respect is the fundamental level of respect that is owed to all human beings. It meets the need to feel included and recognizes that all people have value. The second type is known as earned respect. This type recognizes an individual’s behaviors or accomplishments that are considered valuable to the company. Both owed and earned respect are necessary in any organization.
If owed respect is present, but earned is not, people will feel devalued for their accomplishments. They will quickly learn that their behaviors and achievements don’t mean anything since everyone is treated equally. I vividly remember being on a health committee several years ago where I was the only degreed person in the field who had done research on the topic at hand. When the team started making decisions that were in direct opposition to what the science and health field recommended, I objected. Unfortunately, I was told everyone at the table had equal say, and that my advice was no more meaningful than anyone else’s. It was a deflating experience that taught me my earned expertise was not valued in that organization.
The flip side of respect
On the flip side, if earned respect is present but owed respect is not, people will become very competitive since the message they are hearing is “we only value you if you are accomplished.”
Degrees, tenure, sales numbers or titles mean more in these types of organizations. This lack of owed respect is commonly seen in academia. In this environment, students, administrative jobs and instructors of lower title are often treated as though they aren’t as important as the tenured professors. People come to work feeling deflated and unimportant since they lack the status of the more well-respected individuals.
Why employees leave
People tend to closely associate who they are, with their job. We spend most of our waking hours at work. Therefore, it isn’t surprising to expect people to derive some form of identity and personal satisfaction from the work they do.
Kristie Rogers, an associate professor of management at Marquette University, states that employees who feel respected are more satisfied with their jobs and are more grateful to the companies they work for. She also explains that “80% of employees treated uncivilly spend significant work time ruminating on the bad behavior and 48% deliberately reduce their efforts.”
Leaders don’t notice
People who are shown respect (usually the executives in a company), don’t usually think about the need for it. Their title commands it. And because they have the authority to fire people, employees show them a great deal of respect. (Albeit, it might just be fear.) These executives rarely feel the direct display of disrespect that many of us underlings have experienced. They fail to see that disrespect has ripple effects. The old adage “kiss up and kick down” becomes commonplace. Employees learn to kiss up to the people above them and step on and disrespect those below them. They believe this will help them to move through the ranks.
So how do we show respect? Ask. Ask each employee what behaviors and actions they find respectful and disrespectful. Opening a door for a woman might be taken as a sign of respect to her. However, another woman might find that patronizing, so ask. When people are shown respect, they will spread it, so make sure that on your team, you talk about how to show respect, reduce disrespect and practice both earned and owed respect.
Whether you’re the part-time pick-up employee or the funeral home owner, all of us deserve to be treated with respect. And if the part-timer or the owner gets his degree, acknowledge the efforts it took for their accomplishment. Give them the respect they rightfully earned.
