Developing and maintaining high standards of employee respect and loyalty in the workplace is a common struggle that many HR Managers & Business Owners have to contend with all too often.

It is easy to identify some issues within the workplace. But we often leave this unaddressed, which can cause damage to the productivity of your company. We have outlined some of the most common and practical ways to develop respect and loyalty within your company.

Improving employee respect and loyalty in the workplace is no quick task. But one way is to make staff feel part of a uniformed team. Read more in depth about the eight ways to help.

1. Honesty

A core principle for your business should be to work truthfully and with integrity. You can help to improve your communication with your employees and to streamline the processes within your company by having a genuine outlook.

You can offer your staff constructive feedback and ways to progress. This will help develop respect and loyalty in the workplace. By offering them something actionable and, at the same time honest, you can build the trust and openness. This eliminates the negative workplace hierarchy that may have developed.

Image shows respect in the workplace.

2. Open Communication

Whilst growth in the business is a good thing, communication with your employees can drop. Because of this, communication becomes less frequent because your staff want to complete their extra work within the deadline. This often isolates departments and breaks trust between employees and management.

Make sure you consider the implementation that is dedicated to Points of Contact. Your employees can voice their concerns or give feedback with ease. Allow your staff to be listened to and have measures in place to avoid unnecessary workplace stress.

When each of your employees are assigned a dedicated point of contact, it allows them to talk about what they might not have done otherwise. Doing this offers privacy. Allowing your staff to voice their concerns anonymously shows they trust your leadership.

However, it is common within companies not to have a member of staff trained to deal with these issues. If that is the case, having a project management software such as Trello or Basecamp can be beneficial for them. This software allows employees to see what everyone is working on, their schedules, and allows them to interact when they are not in the workplace.

Through accepting feedback on your own management, this will make it easier for employees to take your concerns/feedback onboard in the long term as a token of mutual respect.  

Image shows respect and loyalty in the workplace through communication

3. Supportive Environment

Your employees can work comfortably when working in a supportive environment. This means they will not be worried about making a mistake. Also, it will encourage your staff to experiment and allow them to push themselves.

With the reassurance that their managers will help employees learn from their mistakes, this will develop and strengthen the respect between manager and employee.

There are different ways for you to tackle this, one way of doing this is by making small changes to your company culture. You can consider reward schemes not just for the best performers within your company but, for example, ‘The Unsung Hero Award’ or ‘Tried The Most Daring Initiative’. This rewards employees but also recognises their ambition rather than their failures.

This kind of support inspires your employees and encourages innovation, allowing you to keep your practices fresh. As a result, employees will be further engaged and loyal to your company.

Image shows people showing respect communicating in the workplace

4. Company Updates

Company Involvement does not have to be a case of holding board meetings every week on progression concerning everyone, from HR Managers to Cleaners. Such as an email highlighting a new client coming on board.

This can be as simple as setting up an internal newsletter that details all new business, company achievements and new employee news.

This allows employees to understand that the company is progressing. Also, they will know they are part of something bigger than just their own role, but something successful too.

By doing this, you will eliminate unnecessary worries by your employees over job security. They will then commit their loyalty to the company’s future. Also, this will develop internal respect and loyalty in the workplace. This highlights everyone’s work to get the company to where it is.

Employees do not always need to understand the precise facts and figures (unless that is their job). You can offer your employees a sense of achievement and something to build upon can reignite any lost flames for work ethic.

Image shows email on a computer

5. Outline Company Aims

If company updates involve highlighting anything that has happened, you can also look to include employees in what your company wants to happen. You can tell employees what is in quarterly reviews and forecasting. This can offer a sense of direction for employees to work towards and help them realise where they can make greater strides to achieve these aims.

Employees will respect the opportunity to not only be involved, but can also give informed second opinions on what is achievable from their perspective.

Image shows people talking and looking at a big white board

6. Recognise Employee Ambition and Potential

Recognition is one of the key drivers of respect and loyalty in the workplace. Failing to recognise your employee’s efforts or accomplishments, whether it be on a personal or professional level, and this could lead to an employee not being valued or appreciated. This often leads to employees looking elsewhere for job opportunities.

Look past the employee uniform and recognise each employee’s differing potential and ambition. This can be as simple as asking for employees to email what they accomplished within a day or week. This will allow you to get a greater understanding of what is going on across your company daily and allow you to separate the high performers from the average.

Also, this will offer you opportunities to reallocate roles and responsibility to unlock potential and turn those average employees into high performers. And you will also be able to give personal feedback and congratulations.  

Image shows two hands shaking

7. Engage in a Social Manner

Often, you have little time to interact with your employees on a social level every day. This can be difficult to maintain that once a week depending on the size of your business. However, it is important to restore any doubts over employee loyalty to your business, as you are taking strides to implement a lively company culture.

Whilst this is difficult to make time for these events within office hours, there is the possibility of holding an event on a weekend or after office hours.

These events can be as simple as visiting a local restaurant or a day out for team-building purposes. Including souvenirs such as event printed hoodies detailing “X Company’s Day Out” can help employees be appreciated. This still crafts a lively company culture that appeals to any potential onlookers (this will also appear great for future marketing efforts).

Image shows people having fun in the workplace

8. Keep it Simple

It is important to continue to develop both respect and loyalty to keep employees, boost engagement and productivity, and maintain company targets.

If you are looking to further unify your workforce and eliminate any unnecessary workplace hierarchies, this can be as simple as refreshing your outlook on your employees. This can even be as simple as communicating a new message to your employees, via an updated company mission statement or even a slight refresh to your employee uniform.

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Conclusion

It is not easy improving employees respect and loyalty but there are simple ways of doing this. It is important to be honest with your employees and offer them constructive feedback and ways they can progress within the business.

Consider open communication, you can do this by employing dedicated staff to deal with any worries and by also assigning your staff a dedicated point of contact.

Be supportive so your employees do not worry about making mistakes, this will allows them to take their initiative and learn from this. Involve any members of staff in company updates and highlight your businesses aims.

Make sure your staff fell appreciated and reward and recognise their efforts and accomplishments inside and/or outside of work. Talk to your staff on a sociable level. Finally, do not overthink it. You can keep it simple by, for example, having a new outlook on your employees.