Feeling disrespected by employees

by Susan
(Des Moines, IA)

I am a supervisor of 25+ employees. There has been a lot of stress because of budget constraints and lay offs. I'm feeling disrespected by employees that work in my department. Can you offer me any suggestions?

Thank you for your question. The impact of stress in the workplace can manifest itself in multiple ways. One of the most common is experienced as a generalized level of disrespectful behaviors towards all co-workers.

In my experience in working with stress issues in the corporate setting, many first and second level management staff, specifically, will relay their feeling of being treated disrespectfully. In a way, I offer that as a comfort.

Stress in the workplace is triggered for the same reason as it does in our normal lives - the stress response gets activated whenever there is a real or perceived threat (physically or emotionally) to one's survival.

In workplace situations, this is typically brought on by threats to one's ego and integrity. While there are always many factors that lead up to this, the best strategy for you to think about is opening up conversation about it. Have your employees take an anonymous survey about the stressors they experience. Include in that survey physical, emotional, environmental, workload, behaviors (both verbal and non-verbal).

Once you have those results, your path towards resolution may appear more clearly to you. Also, I would suggest taking an honest look at your existing policy and procedures. Lack of awareness can often lead to assumptions and gossip. Make sure they are clear and that everyone has read them, and acknowledges that they have read them.

Those are the ways I would offer as places to begin.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Cathi

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The second, more alarming (even life-threatening) problem has caused months of diagnostic and therapy confusion among her many consultants, three successive resections of the bone over the last six to eight months, and the still ongoing threat of more relapses of the smoldering bone infection and chronic pain only made bearable by chronic, massive doses of opiates.

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