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Facilitating Friendly Workplaces

By Kathleen Kevany, University of Western Ontario

Evidence amassed over decades reveals the importance of effectively channeling self-interest in organizations. Generally speaking, the more positive and harmonious a workplace atmosphere, the better the environment for customers and workers alike. Workers can evolve into a group of connected people, working together for individual and shared benefit, and creating gratifying and meaningful human relations can be of greater importance than economic remuneration.

Coaching by the organization can serve as a reminder that, at a minimum, people--coworkers, managers, customers, suppliers and community members--are to be treated with respect. Organizations are now being faced with sophisticated citizens who have the power to select enterprises that provide goods or services that reduce harmful social or environmental costs.

Workplaces that instill values of respect and cooperation generate positive ripple effects. The link between strong human resource practices, good reputation and high financial performance holds true, as studies of the top 10 "most admired" companies in the U.S. demonstrate.

Organizational efficiency is enhanced through good relations, and that lends itself to recruitment and hiring benefits; valued employees are retained because they are content, and diverse groups of people working effectively as teams stimulate more business opportunities.

Concrete efforts are needed to counter the pursuit of self-interest. Building community takes work; it requires a tolerance of diversity, a suspension of assumptions about others.

It makes good business sense to invest in relationship-building exercises in an organization, and businesses that transcend cultural barriers are better placed to thrive in a global marketplace. An examination of values may reveal the need to introduce respect, to share leadership and foster openness and feedback.

A group process that takes time to ponder and value insights is time well spent. Ellen Wasserman, an advocate of healthy workplaces, suggests: "We are not just supporting one another's neurosis, we are encouraging one another's growth."

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