This week we are celebrating ‘National inclusion Week’ at People Lab. Feeling included in the workplace is one of the key ingredients for employees to feel comfortable and confident, and ultimately engaged. Let’s start by looking at what we mean by inclusion, and how it relates to equality and diversity.
Equality is about the fair treatment of everyone and is often linked to the legal framework of The Equality Act 2010 in the UK.
Diversity is the mix of people in the workplace.
Inclusion is the culture in which the mix of people can come to work, feel comfortable to be themselves, work in a way that suits them and do a good job. Inclusion will ensure that everyone feels valued.
One of the ways we can foster inclusion at work is by ensuring we have psychological safety in the workplace. So what is psychological safety? Psychological safety is the belief that you won’t be punished if you make a mistake at work. It is about being able to speak up without fear of reprisal or humiliation. Studies show that psychological safety enables people to speak their mind, be creative and stick their neck out without fear of having it cut off — and this leads to greater productivity and teamwork (Edmondson, 1999). When we have psychological safety at work we are more likely to experience inclusion as well.
To cultivate psychological safety, you can follow these 4 steps:
1. Start by listening to your people. Genuinely ensuring your people are listened to and feel heard, will go a long way to building connections. When we feel listened to it can build trust and psychological safety if we ensure we listen without judgement.
2. Be authentic, and show employees that emotions are accepted and valued in the workplace. This means that employees themselves will feel comfortable to share their experiences, if they ever need to.
3. Role model the behaviours you wish to see. We can create social norms around inclusivity and connection by ensuring our own behaviour role models this. Being friendly, available, non-judgemental, and expanding your connections can help to show people that connections are valued. The most important people that need to role model this behaviour are leaders in the organisation.
4. Make it easy for people to connect in ways that work for them. Don’t make assumptions about how people like to connect, some people love a face-to-face meeting whereas others prefer email communication. Find out what works for the people you work with and do more of it.
Deliberately create opportunities for people to connect and give people the space and time to do this. From ensuring employees regularly take lunch or have a coffee together, through to formal peer mentoring programmes or collaboration events, find ways to encourage connections to flourish and grow. This will not only enable a more inclusive workplace, but also a great employee experience.
Tell us more about your initiatives to make your workplace more inclusive! We would love to hear from you!
@Elin
#UnitedForInclusion #psychologicalsafety #employeeexperience
