It's been a long time since I had to report to anyone at work other than my customers or a Board of Directors. But not so long that I can't remember being told to fetch coffee, ran late to pick up my children in order to run personal errands for my boss, had my suggestions mocked (instead of politely declined), or simply ignored. I'm fairly thick-skinned, and that type of treatment most often inspired an I've-got-better-things-to-do-than-work-for-you internal response.
But when I witness this behavior happening to others, my response is much more emotional. What does it mean to honor an employee's dignity?
For starters, it means remembering that as an employer, you are not doing your employees a "favor." The employer/employee exchange is one of parity - one works, the other pays money for the work. These exchanges must be in balance for dignity to be a possibility.
Second, it means that the employer takes seriously their responsibility to train, guide, and communicate. People don't come into any new job automatically knowing how things work. Even the same job in a different company can be radically different than your version of that job. To bring a new employee on, and then doom them to failure due to lack of structure, expectations, or instruction is to undermine their dignity.
It is a bit too easy, when you're the boss, to forget that there can be many ways to arrive at a particular destination. It is your responsibility to honestly identify which paths are nonnegotiable and which have some flexibility of approach. To deny others the right to think any way but your way is to discount their value - and therefore their dignity.
Unfortunately, many business owners and managers believe that the absence of profanity or yelling means they have created a dignified workplace, but some of the most demeaning behavior I have ever witnessed was done with a smile and polite language.
To respect someone's dignity is to respect their essential equality, their inherent value, and their full potential to not only contribute, but to teach you something as well. To create a workplace imbued with dignity, we must endeavor to be genuinely dignified ourselves.
