Civility in the Workplace: Addressing Human Rights and Management

This report examines the critical role of civility in the workplace, particularly within a multicultural environment, and its implications for human rights and organizational effectiveness. It highlights how incivility, including workplace violence, harassment, and discrimination, can lead to legal challenges and negatively impact employee well-being. The report emphasizes the importance of proactive measures, such as implementing a code of conduct, fostering transparent communication, and prioritizing employee training (e.g., CREW model), to cultivate a respectful and productive work environment. It also addresses the need for organizations to mitigate personality conflicts, promote diversity, and ensure ethical policies to prevent incivility and its adverse consequences, such as demotivation, legal scrutiny, and reputational damage. The report underscores the importance of consistent enforcement, protection of whistleblowers, and soft-skill development to enhance relationships and maintain a healthy workplace culture, referencing relevant literature to support its claims.

Running Head: MANAGING PEOPLE: CIVILITY IN THE WORKPLACE
Topic- Managing People-Civility in the workplace
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Assignment answers
1. In a multicultural workplace incivility in the forms of workplace violence, workplace
harassment and psychological harassments could give rise to human rights issues. The
human rights laws of Canadian Jurisdiction prohibit discriminatory practices on the
grounds of race, age, disability and cultural backgrounds. In a wider sense,
discrimination, disrespect and wrongful dismissal in workplaces have legal connotations
to them (Gilbert, Raffo & Sutarso, 2013).
2. In this regard the convincing power of the employer on part of the organization need to
be strong and creating a sustainable workplace need to be prioritized. The personality
conflict among co-workers is to be reduced and for this the CREW model of workplace
program should be implemented (Lim & Bernstein, 2014). Civility, Respect and
Engagement at Work should be focused that will in turn improve productivity, employee
well-being and overall organizational functioning. Modification of controlled behavior is
to be emphasized while interacting in groups or with managers. The mutual respect for
each other is based on people treatment, civility, support and work impacts (Schilpzand,
De Pater & Erez, 2016). Organizations need to ensure that civility becomes a priority and
is regularly discussed among the workforce. And for this an acceptable code of conduct
need to be implemented that will act as the Golden rule for both organization and
employees (Sharma, 2016). Henceforth, working relationships will automatically
improve.
3. Uncivil behavior like rude remarks and jokes can demotivate the employees in a number
of ways and will increase their frustration of being dishonored. Discrimination and
disrespect in workplaces may be legal challenges for the organization (Sian, Law &

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Sayyid, 2013). If the employee wishes to file a harassment complaint or present before
the law the case of civil rights violation then the whole organization will be under
scrutiny of the Canadian Jurisdiction which has the provisions of Human Rights Laws
prohibiting workplace discrimination.
4. It is the responsibility of the organization to create a civil and respectful workplace for
their employees. And for this, first and foremost civility should be prioritized followed by
the development of a socially acceptable code of conduct. Enforcement standards should
be clear and visible (Sian, Law & Sayyid, 2013). Communication should be transparent
and any kind of negative grapevine should be avoided to the extent possible. Protection
of whistle blowers and implementation of civility initiatives need to be more profound
and consistency should be maintained without any biasness (Sharma, 2016). The codes
should be equivalent to Golden rules, to be followed by every employee to support a
healthy and sustainable workplace.
5. It takes years to build reputation but a few seconds to ruin it. This clearly explains the
importance of a respectful work environment in order to keep the mutual respect and trust
of employers and employees undisturbed. Developing a civil workplace is not that easy
because of varying mentalities of the workforce. Diversity is obvious to every
organization and so is conflict resulting out of it (Lim & Bernstein, 2014). But the
organizations that successfully mitigates such issues and develops a policy that restricts
such unethical behavior in future are the ones that remain successful in the long-term.
Personality conflicts give rise to incivility in most cases and for this enhanced training
and personality development sessions need to be conducted so that employees respect
their cultural and humanistic differences. Organizational policies should be ethical, civil

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and biasfree. Discrimination on grounds of age, sex, culture, disability and marital status
should not encouraged. Instead the culture of the organization should be such that group
cohesion is higher and everyone respects each other’s differences. Programs like CREW
and other behavioral development sessions need to be fostered so that civility among co-
workers increase considerably (Lim & Bernstein, 2014). Training on Health and Safety
needs in workplace need to be provided and code of conducts should be reformed
whenever required. Working in teams will increase employee engagement and will
reduce conflicts of interests (Sharma, 2016). Timely feedback and follow-up sessions
need to be conducted so that problem areas could be revealed and preventive measures
are developed accordingly. Soft-skill development will have direct impact on behaviors
and will help in better relationship management (Sian, Law & Sayyid, 2013). Any kind of
legislative policies levied in the organization need to be well articulated among
employees so that everyone is well adverse with the end results of their uncivil behavior.

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References
Gilbert, J. A., Raffo, D. M., & Sutarso, T. (2013). Gender, conflict, and workplace bullying: is
civility policy the silver bullet?. Journal of Managerial Issues, 79-98.
Lim, F. A., & Bernstein, I. (2014, April). Civility and workplace bullying: resonance of
Nightingale's persona and current best practices. In Nursing forum (Vol. 49, No. 2, pp.
124-129).
Schilpzand, P., De Pater, I. E., & Erez, A. (2016). Workplace incivility: A review of the
literature and agenda for future research. Journal of Organizational behavior, 37, S57-
S88.
Sharma, A. (2016). Managing diversity and equality in the workplace. Cogent Business &
Management, 3(1), 1212682.
Sian, K., Law, I., & Sayyid, S. (2013). Racism, governance, and public policy: beyond human
rights. 1st ed. London: Routledge.