Respectful teams

What this is

Regardless of someone’s role in an organisation, everyone has a right to work in a respectful workplace.

As a people manager, you need to feel safe and confident you can work within your sphere of authority, while also looking out for your team’s wellbeing.

Respect includes how people treat each other, how you manage issues and how fair a workplace is.

Respect is also one of the 7 public sector values.

Why you need to focus on this

When your staff feel like they work in a respectful environment, they may:

• be more positive
• be more engaged with their work and their team
• feel satisfied with in the work environment
• feel safer to resolve issues themselves or with less involvement from others
• feel a sense of safety with regards to diversity

What happens if you don’t focus on this

If your staff feel like they work in a place that doesn’t respect them or others, they may:

• become disengaged while at work
• find it difficult to embrace behaviours that reflect the team values
• find it difficult to develop or maintain effective workplace relationships
• find it difficult to maintain themselves at work and take more time off
• lose trust

Tips to use

Here’s some ways to maintain respectful behaviour in your team:

• don’t shy away from brave conversations but be prepared and conscious of the wellbeing of the individual, during and after you speak with them
• empower staff to consider resolving issues using the team values and issue resolution protocols to achieve agreed outcomes
• let staff vent respectfully, if they need to
• link team members to the team values during team meetings with reference to issues that arise
• reference agreed values when resolving issues or calling out behaviours that are not consistent with the team’s values
• set clear expectations on what outcomes you want to see