Corporate America is the way of life for most of us. We sometimes love to hate it, but without our corporate lives, most of us would not be able to support our families. Many Americans have a natural resistance to working in corporations.   Call it our innate quest for independence.

Employees need quality corporations and corporations need quality employees. One major key to success within the corporate world is respect…mutual and honest respect.

Employers need to be respectful of the skills, talent, opinions, personalities, creativity, and needs of their employees. Employees become disenchanted with companies that fail to demonstrate concern for them. Employees who shirk their responsibilities when they should be working, who mistreat company property, take undue advantage of time away benefits (ie: call in sick when they just don’t want to be at work), etc. are not being respectful of the company. 

Jobs are less easy to come by now.  Employers can leverage the poor job market and the economy to bind employees to standards that are really pushing the boundaries of disrespect.  Employees acutely realize how precious keeping a job is.  This stress eventually will manifest itself in workplace issues such as increased workplace injuries, illness, low morale, “bad” attitudes, and eventually loss of productivity.   

Companies that communicate honestly and fairly with employees (no unnecessary spin-doctoring) are in much better position to be viewed as respectful by their employees.