 August 20, 2018
How and Why Should You Promote Civility in the Workplace?
Many of my clients are starting to group today’s hot topics – harassment, discrimination, bullying, unconscious bias and microaggressions – into uncivil behavior. Focusing on their values of respect, they are moving toward creating civility training to make sure they have the highest level of workplace culture.
 What is civility?
Civility represents the social norms and rules that should be followed in order to positively and productively relate with others.
Civility promotes respect, courtesy, inclusiveness, consideration and a rational approach to conflicts.
What is incivility?
- Unintentional incivility occurs. People assume, for example, that what is acceptable in one workplace is acceptable in another, or engage in microaggressions.
- Intentional incivility also occurs. Examples would include bullying behavior such as verbally attacking or bullying a co-worker.
- Other examples of incivility include: using crude or abusive language, discounting someone else’s contribution, sabotaging an individual with gossip or other untrue statements.
- Discrimination or harassment: Are extreme and illegal examples of uncivil behavior.
What are the advantages of promoting civility?
- Promotes a great place to work;
- Increases morale and productivity;
- Reduces turnover and absenteeism; and
- Helps prevent more extreme behavior from developing such as bullying, harassment and discrimination.
What Should You Do?
Encourage your organization to promote civility because:
- There is no escaping other people – most workplaces require working well with others to accomplish many tasks.
- It is consistent with most organization’s values.
- It is the right thing to do.
Include discussions of civility in your other presentations and discussions on:
- Organizational values;
- Harassment and discrimination; and
- Leadership.
Help leaders understand that increasing civility reduces your chances of having to deal with other inappropriate behavior such as harassment and bullying.
What Do You Think?
Do you encourage discussions of civility in your workplace? How have people responded?
 Did You Know
We include discussions of civility in all of our sessions on leadership, harassment and discrimination.
Call or write us at: 303-216-1020 or
Learn more about our training offerings and check out our team members at:
Be sure to read Lynne’s book “The Power of a Good Fight” and learn how conflict can help drive productivity, creativity and innovation.
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