Today, most places of employment have a very diverse workforce. Accordingly, it is paramount that management and supervisory personnel treat their staff with dignity: honoring and respecting others’ time, space, personal beliefs, and ideas. This will help create a culture of dignity and respect that will become pervasive in the staff, not only in their interactions with each other but with clients as well.
I am often asked by businesses to design a system to determine how their employees are treating their customers. We can accomplish this with customer surveys and mystery shopping, etc., or we can just ask ourselves how we are treating our employees. My experience has shown, with few exceptions, that the way we treat our employees is the way they will treat each other and our
customers.
The real value of a diverse workforce is the plethora of ideas and perspectives that can come from the diverse backgrounds represented. A business that practices inclusion, by listening to and respecting those diverse ideas, will reap the real benefits of diversity.
This will also help foster trust in the workplace and enhance the value that the business derives from the diverse demographics of the workforce. As employees begin to embrace the culture of dignity, they will develop trust and self-assurance, which leads to a commitment to the company’s mission and principles, which in turn opens the door to real empowerment.
Too often, I attend or hear about meetings where only one opinion counts. Those businesses are missing out on the real value of diversity and do not understand the concept of dignity. Indeed, they are usually subject to the
treacherous consequences of GROUPTHINK.
You show me a meeting where everyone agrees, and I will show you a meeting that didn't need to take place.
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