Strategies for Building Fair, Inclusive, and Healthy Work Environments
Successful initiatives for building?, , and??work environments are more than just taking the annual compliance trainings and is a shared responsibility of everyone at the organization. Here are some tested strategies that have helped us the status quo at some organizations that we have worked with.
Instead of solely hiring people from known circles that share traits similar to the hiring manager/team, the hiring managers can intentionally encourage cognitive diversity on the team by hiring some people who bring complementary perspectives thereby adding to the existing culture rather than fitting into it. Additionally, it is important to have safeguards in the hiring process to discourage nepotism and cronyism.
2. Periodic, fair assessment of the work environment
A neutral, third-party assessment of an organization’s work culture is important to understand the existing behaviors and sentiments of the employees. It is important that the assessments are designed to uncover any dysfunctions of the teams and help in establishing a baseline. Periodic reassessments of the work environment should be done to measure the progress from the baseline. To get honest responses, it is important that the organizations use the right tools for assessment that can ensure anonymity of the responses. As an example, #Qualtrics has the capability to track IP addresses of the survey responders and hence, if the setting for tracking IP addresses is not turned off, the anonymity of the surveys cannot be assured. It is important to communicate the level of anonymity of their responses to the target audience at the time of seeking responses. Also, it is important to ensure that no personally identifiable information is sought through the questions.
3. Periodic assessment and recalibration of job titles and pay-scales
Set a cadence for proactively reassessing the job descriptions and pay-scales of the entire team and recalibrate those as needed to address any pay inequities. This is especially important for public institutions where employee salaries are public records and can be accessed by anyone in the public.
4. Being intentional and impactful about establishing the code of conduct and calling out violations
It is important to institute and clearly communicate the policies on addressing workplace bullying, mobbing, harassment, rumor mongering, and marginalization of any team member. Due to their demographic and cognitive differences when compared to other team members, certain groups could be subjected to inappropriate treatment such as unnecessary judgements, intentional isolation, bullying, or rumor mongering. While such activities may or may not be unlawful (depending upon their nature), they can breach the psychological safety of the team members belonging to certain groups. Hence, it is important to establish the expected code of conduct and call out violations as they occur. The expectations and boundaries should be clearly and transparently communicated to the entire organization.
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5. Trainings on communication, anger management, emotional intelligence, and empathy
Recognizing what to say, when to say, and how to say it appropriately is an important skill in general, especially for leadership team members. While a part of this is related to communication skills/styles, another part is related to developing an understanding that our team members are human beings with experiences, needs, desires, constraints, and expectations that can be different from ours. Certain compliments, even though well meaning, can be interpreted as slights. For example, telling someone that their English is very good for an Asian can be considered as a slight. Being aware of how we are communicating is important. Additionally, it is important for team members to be aware of their emotions and to manage them appropriately. Such topics can be covered in trainings on communication, anger management, emotional intelligence, and empathy.
6.??Encouraging cognitive diversity or diverse thoughts
Cognitive diversity is a type of diversity that represents the different ways in which people think, understand, or interpret a situation. While demographic diversity can potentially influence cognitive diversity, when demographically diverse teams start to think alike due to various factors, such as, organizational policies, long-term proximity, and shared biases, the performance benefit associated with demographic diversity (when considered by itself) can weaken. Furthermore, cognitive diversity can be seen in demographically homogeneous teams as well. Hence, it is important for the leadership teams to sensitize themselves and their teams about cognitive diversity and encourage inclusivity and design thinking.
7. Looking out for the invisibles during meetings
When holding meetings, it is important for the meeting organizer or moderator to ensure that all the meeting participants are adequately engaged and are given adequate opportunity to speak. If certain team members are hesitant to speak in the group due to being conscious about their spoken language skills or because their opinions do not match that of the majority, they can be engaged in side-chats and interactions before making decisions impacting them or their duties.
Majority of the aforementioned strategies stem from commonsense and first-hand experiences. Some are based on literature review. All of these strategies have been successfully implemented and have yielded positive results.
Please feel free to reach out with questions, if any, on this topic. Thanks!