by Leigh Goessl

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: February 24, 2011

Employees should be treated with respect at work. Most managers or supervisors want to be respected, but respect works both ways. Staff members should have the ability to go home at the end of the day feeling dignified and as if they have been treated with value.

Since the humanistic reasons why employees should be treated at work are pretty obvious, as everyone deserves to be treated well, this should apply to the workplace as well. From a business perspective, it is in a company's best interests to invest in their employees because the returns on this investment can be very worthwhile.

All too often many managers or executives perceive their employees as liabilities instead of the assets they are. This all too common philosophy is hard to digest because without employees, an employer is not going to grow their business or be able to experience profitability. After all, someone has to perform the work in order to have productivity. A workplace full of unmotivated employees or low morale is going to be less productive.

Yet despite this fact, when it comes time for budget evaluations, often the budget line designated for employees is often the first slashed in terms of financial support. This look at employee budget lines often result in lowered pay, hours cut back, negative treatment or worse, lay-offs.

Obviously a business needs to profit in order to sustain itself, however, is by biting the hand that runs the front lines of the company the right way to go about it? This kind of treatment is very bad for staff morale, and in the end has the opposite effect expected because lowered morale can be very costly in the long run.

Employees who are victims of diminished morale are typically less productive, less interested in doing a good job and have an overall complacent or negative attitude towards their workplace.

When staff members are treated badly, this is likely not only going to have a negative impact in their attitudes towards their employers and managers, but in their job performance too. Poor or diminished morale is often a result of bad treatment and this is going to play a primary role in how an employee does their job.

Additionally employees may have an overall complacent or pessimistic attitude towards their workplace. This attitude can be passed, even inadvertently, to customers which can give a negative perception of the business if employees are unhappy enough where their level of personal interaction for providing customer service is low.

On the other hand, employees who are treated well, or at least fairly, and looked upon with respect are going to want to succeed in their jobs and help build the company to be the best it can be.

Granted employees are expensive to maintain, but often there is so much other wasteful activity going on, especially in larger, more bureaucratic oriented entities, that there may be other ways to cut back and be able to operate with a more appealing budget.

Unfortunately this requires a lot of work and some decision makers don't want to take the time to find out where long term savings are and focus on short term savings of cash flow. It's much easier to treat employees as liabilities and make the assumption that employees are going to take poor treatment because of the need for a paycheck.

The problem with this is that when the first opportunity for another job arises, employees who are treated badly are going to bolt. High turnover can be a pretty costly expense to maintain.

Wouldn't it be easier for employers to treat employees well and grow a loyal staff? By demonstrating respect, the payoff in the long run will be a win-win situation.

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