Paul Meshanko of Legacy Business Cultures got rave reviews for his session on the Respect Effect at the recent CHART Miami Conference. Now, he has summarized this relevant information in an article:
Everybody is motivated by something. Likewise, there’s also something that can motivate people to change. It’s just a matter of figuring out what the levers are for each person. As it pertains to treating others with respect, there have historically been two important arguments that people have advocated. In recent years, additional arguments have surfaced.
According to statistics published by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), U.S. corporations paid $445.8 million to settle discrimination-related violations in 2012. Frighteningly, these figures represented only reported fines paid for those cases that went to court and did not include attorney and other legal fees incurred. They also did not include money spent reaching settlements for claims that did not go to court, damage to corporate “good will,” and lost workplace productivity. While hard data for these costs are not available because settlement details are often kept confidential, some estimates put them at over four times the actual amount of fines collected. It is safe to assume that U.S. businesses spent over $2 billion to settle claims of disrespectful, and typically unlawful, behavior. You don’t have to major in finance to be impressed by the potential cost of disrespect, either individual or systemic.
