EVERY DAY should be Employee Appreciation & Civility Day!

When we are a part of civil, loving, and respectful environments, we’re more productive, creative, helpful, happy, and healthy.

In fact, Dr. Christine Porath presented her research on her Ted Talk Civility in the Workplace and found that people that felt respected in their jobs were 56% healthier, 92% more focused, had 1.1X greater retention in staying with their organization, and were 55% more engaged in their work compared to employees that witnessed or fell victim to incivility by their superiors.

According to Dr. Porath (at 0:57 in her speech) she explains that "Incivility is disrespect or rudeness, and includes a lot of different behaviors (such as mocking or belittling someone, teasing people in hurtful ways, and telling offensive jokes)."

To add, what's uncivil to one person MAY be civil to another.

We've all either been in a situation where we texted while in a discussion with someone OR had someone text while we were talking to them. Some may (myself included) view texting while chatting as an uncivil act, but others may find it as acceptable and unbothersome.

WHO, WHAT, and HOW does Incivility impact the Workplace?

It's no secret that incivility negatively affects the perpetrators, victims, and witnesses' job performance. If employers displayed employees with more appreciation and kindness, incivility may not be as common in the organization. After all, a deeply respected employer-employee social relationship should not lead to incivility.

Christine addresses that not only does incivil attitutes affect performance (and ultimately the bottom line) but also our mental attentiveness, brain power usage, internal motivations, and emotions reflective of ourselves, our job, and of others.

Incivility makes employees feel less motivated

When Christine Porath went to grad school to learn about incivility and the effects of it, she had connected with another researcher, Christine Pierson. They launched a study (discussed at 3:01) to send surveys to business school alumni that worked in different organizations. Dr. Porath and Dr. Pierson asked the participants to write a few sentences about one experience where they were treated rudely, disrespectfully, or insensitively by their boss and the researchers had the participants answer questions about how they reacted toward this experience. The outcome from this study (shown at 3:31) brought to light that “Incivility made people less motivated.” In fact, 66% of employees cut back on their work efforts, 80% of people lose time worrying about what happened, and 12% leave their job.

This study really resonated with me because, like her, I had also been managed by a toxic boss that called me a female dog (you know what word I’m referring to) to a coworker and I had found out about it through that same coworker. Later, he had admitted to calling me that insult and was reprimanded by his boss. However, I remember internalizing if I really WAS acting in a bossy, demanding manner with my coworkers or if my manager was putting me down to make him feel better about himself. I noticed my attitude toward my work environment, other employees I was working with, and the emotions I was showing to customers changed from optimistic to unenthusiastic directly after this incident occurred. Although, I realize now that it didn’t matter if I was acting demanding toward my coworkers, that did not give my boss the right to name-call me to another employee. Regardless, the lesson that I transcribed from this Ted Talk is that managers that inappropriately act uncivil towards their subordinates are unprofessional and eventually their words/actions will come back to haunt their professional livelihood. As Dr. Porath put it so elegantly at 9:10, “There will always be some outliers that succeed despite their incivility, sooner or later though most uncivil people sabotage their success, especially when they’re in a place of weakness or need something. People won’t want to have their backs.” The ironic outcome of this example is that less than a year later, this manager was fired from his superior manager for treating customers poorly and tried to beg his way back to his job.

Have you ever experienced an uncivil situation in your workplace? Comment with how you reacted below!

Simple ways to implement a respectful and civil work culture:

Dr. Porath shares on the Harvard Business Review journal Make Civility the Norm on Your Team some easy ways that employers (or anyone who is at a higher leadership level) can positively interact with subordinates to create a cohesive and strong team!

A company's manager should:

1) articulate and reinforce their values with employee’s personal core values to make sure it's the right fit for both parties

2) set expectations early-on in the interviewing process (such as explaining the importance of simply saying "good morning" to one another

3) explain what civility means to employees (i.e. Bryan Cave's Code of Conduct)

4) equipping employees and teams with interpersonal skills (like active listening and giving feedback)

5) coaching employees through training programs/classes (on active listening, giving & receiving feedback, working out emotional differences, how to properly deal with difficult people, and even on negotiation, stress management, crucial conversations, and mindfulness)

Number's one, two, and four should be a given for any company that is focused on employee appreciation and return on the ROE. In regards to number three, Bryan Cave's Code of Conduct would give a reminder to both the manager and employee of the importance of a strong and mutual relationship. Companies that decide to auto-enroll employees and managers into civility programs/classes give companies a competitive edge when recruiting employees to work for them. A company that invests in its employees AND management is one that will succeed through their double bottom line. Do you agree?

__________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Porath advises us in her Ted Talk with a few easy methods to act civil with one another in our career, home, school, online, and community lives:

Thank people; write a hand-written thank you note

Share credit of work from others

Use your active listening skills and humbly ask questions

Acknowledge others

and...SMILE! :-)

At 14:30 of the video, she mentions: “Leaders have about 400 of these touchpoints a day. The key is to be agile and mindful in each of these moments.”

One of the easiest methods to be civil in our everyday life is to use the 10-5 Way Method created by Patrick Quinlan (former CEO of Ochsner Healthcare)!

If you are within 10 feet from someone make eye contact and smile and if you're within 5 feet, say hello!