People thrive when they feel respected, and this is especially true in the workplace. As the saying goes, respect is reciprocal, meaning that treating employees respectfully makes them value your organization and put in their best in return. On the other hand, a disrespected employee is likely to lose interest in their role, lowering their productivity.
To maintain a positive work environment, you must build a culture of mutual respect among employees. Here, we’ll explore mutual respect, why it matters, and how to assess it within your company.
That being said…
What is mutual respect?
Mutual respect means recognizing and valuing a colleague’s strengths, ideas, and opinions, no matter who they are. Since every employee brings a unique perspective, diversity naturally emerges in organizations. Mutual respect is the glue that keeps a team together, ensuring that employees value their colleagues’ input and demonstrate appreciation for them, regardless of differences.
Toxic company culture has become a leading driver of employee turnover—a 2022 Flexjobs survey found that 62% of workers cited it as their reason for quitting. When respect is absent from the workplace, employees often feel ignored and undervalued, leading to lower morale, quiet quitting, and, in most cases, outright resignation.
Why is mutual respect important in the workplace?
Prioritizing respect in your organization not only boosts team morale but also fosters a healthy, welcoming work environment. Let’s explore five key benefits of cultivating mutual respect in the workplace.
1. Higher employee retention
Cost-per-hire is quite expensive for several organizations, emphasizing the importance of employee retention to avoid costly turnover and rehiring. In a team where respect is the norm, employees feel higher job satisfaction and a sense of belonging, making them more comfortable with their jobs. When they genuinely love and enjoy working in your organization, they are motivated to remain with you and less tempted to look elsewhere.
2. Increased productivity
Mutual respect in an organization leads to higher job satisfaction, and happy employees make for a more enthusiastic workforce. With increased enthusiasm, employees will show more engagement and dedication in their day-to-day activities on the job. The higher their engagement and interest level, the harder they’ll work to get results, inevitably leading to increased productivity in the organization.
3. Improved collaboration and teamwork
Respecting team members involves listening, acknowledging, and considering their views during conversations and when making decisions. This empathetic behavior provides a strong foundation for better relationships. With strong, cohesive employee relationships, they can collaborate and resolve conflicts better, improving their ability to work together to achieve goals collectively.
4. Stronger creativity and problem-solving
Where there’s mutual respect, employees understand that their opinions are welcomed and valued, which prompts them to readily contribute to solving problems. They feel encouraged to think outside the box and get innovative in teams that acknowledge and appreciate their ideas. When everyone gets actively involved and brings solutions to issues, problems get resolved quickly, helping the company reach targets on time.
5. Healthier employee well-being
The impact of workplace stress is far from abstract. When employees face constant friction, mental stress, and frequent disrespect, burnout is measurable. In fact, a 2024 SHRM study revealed that 45% of workers feel emotionally drained, and more than half (51%) report feeling completely used up by the time they leave work.
When these feelings are prevalent among your team members, their work quality and output will be low, reducing your team’s effectiveness. On the other hand, respect, friendship, and consideration for others create a positive atmosphere with reduced burnout and healthier employee well-being.
5 Skills that demonstrate mutual respect
Mutual respect naturally thrives when employees have soft skills that promote collaboration. To build a respectful team, you must prioritize character traits that encourage both new hires and older employees to be considerate of one another. Let’s explore some of these skills below.
1. Active listening
Active listening is paying rapt attention to the speaker in a conversation and understanding their perspective before giving thoughtful responses. Practicing this skill makes employees open to each other’s thoughts and engage deliberately during conversations.
By listening to understand their colleagues first before responding, they communicate that they follow their teammates’ train of thought and opinions. This makes the speaker feel heard, respected and encouraged to continue the conversation.
2. Equity and fairness
This involves providing everyone with the resources and support they need to succeed and ensuring no one receives preferential treatment over others. When employees are fair to each other, everyone feels valued as their contributions are recognized. By acknowledging each person’s unique needs and fostering a supportive environment, employees show a genuine commitment to helping each other grow and reach their goals.
3. Healthy communication
Employees have different needs and priorities that shape their sense of respect, and communication lets them express these needs to others. Without open dialogue to communicate their thoughts, employees can easily misunderstand each other, making it challenging to offer support where needed. Healthy communication prevents these conflicts and reduces friction, encouraging trust, strengthening working relationships, and raising team morale.
4. Acknowledgment and positive feedback
The power of recognition in the workplace is clear: employees who receive monthly acknowledgment show 22% higher commitment levels, according to a 2024 Achievers report. This isn’t surprising—when contributions are consistently celebrated, team members feel seen and valued, regardless of the scale of their input. In contrast, workplaces that lack this recognition culture often breed feelings of disrespect and underappreciation, ultimately dampening employees’ drive to excel.
5. Inclusivity
No employee wants to feel left out or disregarded because of their differences. Most successful teams practice diversity hiring, creating the need for an inclusive culture that welcomes everyone regardless of their background or differences in opinions. In such conducive, friendly environments, employees are open-minded rather than dismissive of colleagues they may not agree with, leading to respect and stronger team bonds.
How to identify mutual respect in the interview process
Building a respectful team starts during hiring, as it’s easier to promote workplace respect when you hire for the culture you want. Since these traits can be hard to spot, you must have strategies for assessing them.
Here are five ways to identify mutual respect during interviews.
1. Structured interviews
In structured interviews, you interview candidates using predefined questions that assess a specific skill necessary for the job. Although interviews aren’t completely objective, sticking to an agreed-upon structure helps minimize bias and provides equal evaluation for every candidate.
Here, you want to understand how the candidate has handled previous tricky situations with respect for their colleagues. Below, we’ll explore some examples of possible structured interview questions that assess mutual respect:
- Have you ever worked with someone with a different work style or personality than yours? How did you react to this situation?
- Describe a time you listened actively to a colleague who felt misunderstood and the result of this dialog.
- Have you ever given constructive feedback to a colleague? How did they receive it?
- Can you share an example of a time you received difficult feedback? How did you respond?
- Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a teammate and how you resolved it.
- How would you describe and practice fairness in the workplace?
2. Observing candidates’ communication style
Communication is a huge factor of mutual respect, so you must observe how each candidate gets their point across. Whether during interviews, group assessments, or even informal interactions with other candidates, listen closely for aspects of their communication style that may not be so obvious.
Most communication is nonverbal, so in addition to their speech and interview responses, note their facial expressions, undertones, and body language. These could be much more honest indicators of how respectful they really are, especially with candidates whose interview answers and resumes don’t accurately reflect them.
3. Group assessments
Respect is a people skill, so you can supplement individual tests with group assessments to see candidates in group settings. Unlike theoretical tests or individual interviews, group assessments allow candidates to interact and converse with each other, showing you how they behave when working in a team. Through group tasks, you can observe how each candidate listens to teammates, responds to diverse opinions, and acknowledges others’ efforts—all important characteristics of mutual respect.
4. Reference checks
Resume screening shouldn’t be the only assessment tool to avoid bias and costly hiring mistakes. However, performing reference checks provides an opportunity to verify that the candidate is who they claim to be.
Reach out to candidates’ past employers, asking about their interpersonal relationships and collaboration skills when assigned to a team. These insights can reveal how their fellow employees perceived them and how respectfully they interacted with others.
5. Skill assessments
Skill assessments are structured evaluations that assess a candidate’s skill in a specific area necessary for job success. They’re a great, objective choice for evaluating both hard and soft skills and give insight into the candidate’s likely response to job-specific scenarios.
On these tests, you ask situational questions that require candidates to respond with consideration and respect for a colleague. Based on their answers, you get an idea of how respectful they are in work settings without hiring bias. These tests are highly accurate and easy to use, but you need quality software that guarantees top-notch performance.
Vervoe is one of the best hiring and recruitment platforms, providing quality assessments for technical and soft skills, including communication, project management, product marketing, coding, and active listening. This blend of skills testing helps you identify candidates who excel in both areas, rather than those who possess superb technical skills but lack essential soft skills like stakeholder management.
Our assessment library contains over 300 already-made templates, providing the flexibility you need to evaluate mutual respect across various roles quickly. You also get a question bank with over 300,000 questions, giving you the flexibility to prepare customized assessments that reflect your exact hiring needs.
Evaluating numerous applicants can be exhausting, but Vervoe’s AI automates this with impressive accuracy. It assesses multiple candidates at once, grades them based on your criteria, and ranks each by job and organizational fit. This offers an instant view of candidates likely to thrive in a respectful work culture, enabling you to make more informed hiring decisions.
Besides theoretical questions, Vervoe provides job simulations that let you see your candidates practice mutual respect in realistic scenarios. We also have branded assessments and candidate feedback options to improve candidate experience and make the interview process as interactive and engaging as possible.
How to sustain a culture of mutual respect in the workplace
Hiring employees with traits that show respect is a necessary first step. But it doesn’t stop there; you must take intentional measures to sustain a mutual respect culture in your organization. As a leader, your actions set the pace for others, so how respectful you are towards employees largely determines their actions in return.
Here are a few things you can do to promote mutual respect in your team:
- Communicate respect as one of your organization’s core values, ensuring that employees understand its importance.
- Show example by treating every member of your team with utmost respect, regardless of their position or job description.
- Celebrate employees’ achievements and acknowledge those who consistently demonstrate outstanding respect.
- Constructively address and correct team members who show disrespect to discourage such behavior.
- Encourage employees to voice their opinions and provide a safe space for teammates to do the same without being harshly criticized or dismissed.
By taking the steps above, you show employees that respect is the foundation of your team and encourage other employees to follow suit.
Choose Vervoe for building a better team culture
Mutual respect is crucial for a thriving, productive workplace where employees readily contribute and participate in team activities. To build a respectful team, you must prioritize this quality right from your hiring process, creating the need for an assessment strategy that can quickly identify it.
Vervoe’s features are seamless, precise, and highly accurate. We also offer comprehensive assessments that keep your candidates engaged to the very end. Our assessment library and job simulations are well-equipped to evaluate mutual respect and other soft skills required for any role.
Ready to build a stronger team culture with the right hires? Request a free demo and start hiring the Vervoe way.
