Module 07
Interacting with people
No matter your job or your workplace, dealing with people effectively is a must for success. Dealing with everyday people successfully will make work more fun and inspiring. Dealing with people is both a joy and a challenge.
But, dealing with people successfully is the most significant factor determining whether you will have the impact and influence you need to accomplish your mission at work. Dealing with people effectively is a skill that you can learn. Here is how you can become the most successful at dealing with people at work.
Ask anyone in your workplace what treatment they most want at work. They will likely top their list with the desire to be treated with dignity and respect. You can demonstrate respect with simple, yet powerful actions.
Demonstrating respect is the most important interaction that you can have dealing with the everyday people who populate your work life. Here's how to demonstrate respect when you're dealing with people.
Treat people with courtesy, politeness, and kindness.
Encourage coworkers to express opinions and ideas.
Listen to what others have to say before expressing your viewpoint. Never speak over, butt in, or cut off another person.
Use people’s ideas to change or improve work. Let employees know you used their idea, or, better yet, encourage the person with the idea to implement the idea.
Never insult people, name call, disparage or put down people or their ideas.
Do not nit-pick, constantly criticize over little things, belittle, judge, demean or patronize. A series of seemingly trivial actions, added up over time, constitutes bullying.
Treat people the same no matter their race, religion, gender, size, age, or country of origin. Implement policies and procedures consistently so people feel that they are treated fairly and equally. Treating people differently can constitute harassment or a hostile work environment.
Include all coworkers in meetings, discussions, training, and events. While not every person can participate in every activity, do not marginalize, exclude or leave any one person out. Provide an equal opportunity for employees to participate in committees, task forces, or continuous improvement teams. Solicit volunteers and try to involve every volunteer.
Praise much more frequently than you criticize. Encourage praise and recognition from employee to employee as well as from the supervisor.
Source:http://humanresources.about.com/od/workrelationships/a/demo_respect.htm
Questions:
Who exactly is this information meant for?
Pick out all the positive verbs, then the negative ones.
Are there more positive than negative verbs used. How are negative ones used positively.
Read the following document
The Importance of Interaction in Workplace Issues
by Tara Duggan, Demand Media
Employees need to interact to solve problems effectively. Avoiding disagreements just causes more friction over time. Common sources of problems in the workplace include limited resources, such as time or materials, conflicts of interest and insufficient definition of responsibilities. Employees who interact effectively overcome stereotypes and misconceptions to work more productively. Despite equal opportunity and fair hiring regulations, organizations still need to value diversity and tolerance to improve day-to-day interactions between workers. In a highly volatile global marketplace, successful leaders maintain their company's competitive edge by ensuring that all employees develop skills to communicate with people from other cultures and backgrounds.
Reducing Workplace Discrimination
By providing employees with opportunities to share cultural traditions and participate in role-playing exercises to practice solving problems in nontraditional ways, you help workers become more tolerant of other viewpoints. Human resource professionals help organizations by running workshops and seminars to allow people to practice these interactions. By recognizing their perceptions and attitudes toward others with unfamiliar backgrounds, participants start to develop new ways of working that minimize workplace discrimination.
Maximizing Job Satisfaction
Unresolved conflict often leads to disruptions in workflow. Feelings of unhappiness, dissatisfaction and depression result in poor relationships, aggressive behavior and sometimes violence in the workplace. Successful leaders promote effective communication strategies to help employees resolve disputes quickly. When employees interact productively, they work together to analyze the root causes of problems, identify the nature of the issues and propose possible solutions. Without effective communication, messages are sent, but the receiver fails to comprehend the meaning and take appropriate action.
Creating a Collaborative Environment
The more people work together, the more potential exists for conflict. Building effective teams and establishing clear roles and responsibilities minimizes the negative aspects of teamwork. When you define clear objectives at the beginning of a project, you help prevent misunderstandings about priorities later on. When conflicts arise, you can reduce friction between opposing parties by assessing if the conflict occurs because of a workplace issue or a personality difference. For example, if one employee can't complete work because another employee fails to provide her with the necessary information, the conflict can be resolved by addressing the workflow issue. In other cases, personality-based conflicts arise because of working style. For example, if one member of the team works best under pressure while another prefers to get work done well in advance, their interactions may be stressful and tense. By teaching employees how to work things out and find a compromise that works for both parties, you ensure greater productivity in the workplace.
Impact of Stress and Tension
When employees avoid each other, productivity and job satisfaction tends to decrease. Employee retention rates decrease, and absenteeism increases. Helping employees recognize the warning signs of excessive stress can help them cope and prevent burnout. Employees who worry excessively tend to have health problems, difficulties with their personal and professional relationships and trouble getting work done. By conducting focus groups and encouraging employees to solve problems together, you help restore productive and provide remedial solutions to ongoing issues.
source:http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-interaction-workplace-issues-11429.html
Assignment
Outline ten item that are mentioned to help reduce tension and improve productivity. (ten sentences)
Essay: What are some of the difficulties of working in an intercultural context? (200-250 words)
Vocabulary workflow:
the sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion.
Video
What mistakes does the man make in his work?
How do conflicts develop?
How do we define conflict?
What mistakes do people make?
What is the purpose of the video?
How is humour created?