By Randy Kennett 

Employee productivity is influenced by the action of respect. How does respect communicate and behave through the qualities, attitudes, and values of your people? Organizations either have a workplace culture by design or default. Successful leaders are intentional about designing a culture of respect, and dedicated to achieving respect as a cultural norm. Every organization has their “normal” for culture, and when opportunities arise with respectful communication and behaviour, we need to ask ourselves: “What about our culture and leadership allows this disrespectful performance?”

Respect can be the universal language that supports a workplace community where everyone is able to engage, which includes a combination of treating people how we would like to be treated, and also treating people how they would like to be treated. When it comes to diversity, there can be a difference. And we won’t know, if we don’t ask.

Through brain research and behavioural science, respect has a proven effect:

• Neurotransmitters are released in the brain as a response to both respectful and disrespectful communication or behaviour towards us, impacting our decisions and actions either positively or negatively.
• Our thought process can contribute to disrespectful performance, when we are evaluating others based on stereotypes and prejudgements, or respectful performance when we have accurate data supporting our awareness and points of view.

When we have the foundation of respect, with everyone understanding the language of respect, we set ourselves up for a trusting environment where people are valued. This trust and value for others, allows us to be open to people’s diversity, and allows people to be open with their own diversity.

Through Respect: The Source of Our Strength, we define diversity as anything different whatsoever, which includes the traditional categorizations of diversity and the diversity of our experiences and thoughts. When there is an openness with our differences, we set ourselves-up to achieve inclusion, which is diversity in practice. Once people’s differences are included, people are positioned to engage, and with the engagement of people’s talents, gifts, and abilities, we will have the potential for greater individual contribution, and thus productivity for the organization. If you take a sports team as an example, a coach can build a respectful culture for the game, teamwork, winning, and individual talent. This respectful culture supports the players to value each others diversity, positions and roles on the team. Inclusion is achieved when the players have a chance to get off the bench and be in the game, and once the players are in the game, their talents, gifts and skills can then be engaged, supporting the productivity and goals of the team.

An important part of any successful respect, diversity, inclusion, engagement, and employee productivity training, also includes points of connection, and not just points of differences.

When it comes to our values, there can be many points of connection that we can have with each other and our organization. As we consider our values, the question becomes, “Do you really have that value, or do you only respect the way that you live out and behave that value in your life?” Values as you live them, may be a point of separation from others, or when we respect how values can behave in diversity, and inclusion, they may be a point of connection. For example, when it comes to the value of family, there are many different ways that this value can behave. Do you really value family, or just when it looks like yours?

We know that employee productivity, through respect, diversity, inclusion, and engagement, leads to:

• Greater retention and recruitment of top talent
• Improved client satisfaction
• Increased innovation and creativity
• Higher organizational efficiencies and profitability

One last question: when you think about your investment in your payroll, do you believe that you’re getting your money’s worth? If not, respect could make the difference.

Randy Kennett is presenting Diversity/Inclusion/Engagement: Practices for the Workplace in Vancouver on November 23.

Randy Kennett has over 15 years of human resources, leadership, and business experience, across Canada and the Pacific Northwest. He has gained valuable experience working as an entrepreneur and for leading international companies. Randy is currently a Senior Associate with Edge Learning, Director with Hone Consulting, and as of Fall 2011, and an Instructor with Continuing Education at five universities/colleges in BC.