Jonathan Gonzalez (jgonzalez@syntrio.com) is senior legal counsel at Syntrio Inc. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Jason Lunday (jlunday@syntrio.com) is vice president and compliance officer at Syntrio Inc. in Washington, DC.
For perhaps over a decade, corporate culture has been all the rage. Business leaders, consultants, and academics have been dissecting this topic, authoring books and giving talks about the power of an organization’s culture on employee engagement, motivation, creativity, innovation, and, eventually, success. Leaders and observers of companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Zappos, Chick-fil-A, Toyota, and many others have trumpeted the success of understanding, identifying, and shaping company culture to create a competitive market advantage and delight customers. At the same time, the ethics and compliance community has explored the role of an “ethical culture” or “culture of compliance” for promoting responsible business conduct, with some promise that this culture also can lead to business success.
When an organization’s leadership contemplates what’s needed to build a strong, vibrant workplace that will encourage everyone’s efforts to outperform the competition and best serve customers, it’s best to start with the foundations of workplace culture. What’s often most demotivating for employees are a lack of respect, unfairness in employment decisions, and problems with health and safety. Until employees feel they are treated respectfully, fairly, and with their health and safety as a priority, it’s unlikely they’re willing to provide their full efforts to the organization’s success. Laura Woolford, AlertMedia’s chief people officer, relates Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to the workplace, citing the needs of physiological and safety needs, followed by belonging, as the foundation of employee motivation.[1] Here, we explore these needs further to help you build a workplace culture that proactively mitigates compliance and ethics risks.
Workplace respect
Respect can involve many different attributes: civility (including courteous and polite behaviors), regard for other’s dignity, positive interpersonal dynamics, consideration for one’s background and characteristics, and regard for one’s health and safety, as examples.[2] The most impactful aspect of a respectful workplace is likely to be an absence of harassment and bullying, both of which recently have garnered increased focus. A recent U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report found that disrespectful treatment of others remains a concern within the workplace. It identified that workplace disrespect had profound effects on employee engagement.[3]
A related aspect of workplace respect, and one with emerging focus, involves diversity, equity, and inclusion. This goes straight to the importance of belonging to employee engagement in Maslow’s hierarchy. As employees demand greater attention to these issues, workplaces that seek to mitigate disrespect and even unfairness concerns will promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
