Corporate Courtesy--Your Mother Taught You Better
For any Dennis Miller fans, here comes some ranting…Am I the only one who is amazed that corporate America functions as well as it does? I am often surprised that human resource professionals have time to do anything but fend off complaints and lawsuits that are based on the rude and unprofessional behavior of others.
Obviously, there are egregious cases of unlawful discrimination that receive immediate and swift attention, as they should. But, what are the results of the consistent neglect or abuse of common courtesy, let alone professional behavior? There are several, and none of them make for an effective, high-performing organization.
Unprofessional behavior may already be creating one or more of the following impacts in your organization:
- Low morale (everyone talking and complaining about their treatment)
- Low productivity (employees spend time talking instead of working)
- Poor performance (doing only the minimum to stay out of trouble)
- Sabotage (missing deadlines, hoarding information)
- Lack of participation on committees or task forces
- Turnover (the top performers will leave because they have options while you are left with the remaining staff)
- Lawsuits (particularly if management does nothing to remedy the situation)
- Employees out on stress leave or with medical conditions
How far can we go to regulate the behavior of others in the workplace? It’s like asking how we make children be nice and play well together in the sandbox. If someone sent out a memo stating that we are allowed to leave common courtesy and manners at home when we come to work, I missed it (as did 80% of the workforce who are forced to deal with the 20% who apparently wrote the memo).
When you consider that many employees spend more time with the people they work with than they do with their families, it seems like we would all make more of an effort to make it a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It is important that managers take this type of misbehavior seriously and take action to resolve these issues.
If you are interested in learning more about these issues can be addressed through organizational development efforts (or would like to share successes in these areas), please contact Kammy Haynes .
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