Building a Civil, Respectful, Engaged, Safe, Profitable Place to Work

I think that most people want to work at a place that is like this. We spend a large part of our lives at work, so let’s make things really good.

This is quite attainable with authentic, courageous leaders who take a stand that this is the sort of place they want to lead. The knowledge and technology are available and broadly known by lots of people so I want to share my own experiences.

Building a workplace like this results in the elimination of a lot of waste.

Some examples of the sources of waste are:

• HR time spent investigating claims of harassment or bullying
• High turnover
• Low morale
• Low engagement
• Indifference by some people
• Resistance to change
• Graffiti and vandalism
• Fighting
• Sloppy workmanship
• Many injuries and incidents
• Poor housekeeping
• Unnecessarily long times to get work done
• Some OSHA investigations and law suits

In some organizations where there is a lot of bullying, harassment and worse, the level of waste could be as high as 20% of their payroll cost. This can all be avoided!!!

Here are the things I did that helped me a lot in tackling this problem when I was a plant manager:

• I had to develop the focus within me that lack of respect and incivility were serious problems and I had to personally address them. If I was the problem, I had to work on that. I had to take a public stand on my beliefs that disrespect and incivility among us was unacceptable.
• I then had to let everyone know that I would not tolerate anyone being treated with disrespect and incivility. I had to explain that:
  • none of us had a right to treat each other this way,
  • the open, free flow of information was vital for us to learn,
  • we needed to create a place where it was safe for people to talk together, share and learn,
  • it is very hard on the people impacting psychological safety,
  • it can lead to injuries and violence, and
  • it is very big, darn waste that we can eliminate if we work together. All of us need to play a part.
• Then I had to go into all the workplaces in the plant, respectfully yet firmly, talking with everyone. Sometimes these conversations were not easy as some people pushed back and challenged me.
• I did this day after day for months; trust and interdependence grew; slowly things changed. Everyone could see what I was doing and they knew that they could correct me if I made mistakes. Improvements in all dimensions of our work began to show up. Morale grew. There were fewer injuries and incidents. Turnover and absenteeism dropped. The environmental performance improved along with better customer service. Housekeeping improved. More work was getting done on schedule and costs were lower.

This all began with my determination to work on improving respect, civility and safety. As I built credibility and trust with everyone, people began to make improvements in many other areas. Everything got better.

I need to emphasize that respect in the workplace is so very important. Lack of respect degrades everything. Lack of respect leads to harassment, bullying, sabotage, fighting, and even murder. The leaders set the tone and the standards. Bullying is a problem in over half of our workplaces and about half the bullying is from managers. This is just unacceptable. Not only does it demean the people, it causes safety problems and wrecks involvement and productivity.

Some managers have told me that they do not have the time for working this way. For me, working this way led to far better results than anything that I had learned in all the management courses I had been sent to over the years. As we at the plant came together, working with respect and civility, the level of engagement went way up. This led to more and more improvement. Injury rates dropped 98%, productivity rose 45% and earnings rose 300%. I found this to be a much more satisfying way to work.

• It was easier for me.
• It was fun to see the people grow.
• The results were terrific!

Shifting to this way of working is quite do-able. It takes courage, concern, care, and commitment. Do you have the will? It is worth the effort!

I would be happy to talk with anyone about working this way and share experiences. Call me at 716-622-6467.