Source - NHS Employees
Build an open and trusting environment through meaningful interactions such as one to ones, chats over coffee, sessions and open forums for sharing ideas and opinions. Initiate open communication by asking colleagues how they feel, encourage sharing of both negative and positive experiences.
Make sure everyone feels valued, this can be done by everyone, including leaders, openly saying sorry, thank you and asking for help. Initiate conversations with your colleagues in a respectful way, regardless of the situation, to get the best outcome for all parties involved.
You need to consider the specific needs of your organisation, rather than going for a one-size fits all response. Understand what your culture looks like and any specific barriers your staff face. This also applies on an interpersonal level, it is by understanding every person is different that you can create a psychologically safe environment.
See mistakes as a learning opportunity, something to be openly shared and spoken about. Leaders should role model this by being open about their mistakes with their teams. An essential part of this is giving colleagues time to embed any key learning and use them to prepare in advance.
Listen to your colleagues, show understanding and act with empathy towards their situation, and always provide help and support where you can. If you are open and demonstrate a growth mindset yourself, you can expect your employees to mirror this behaviour.
Set clear expectations for respectful behaviour and encourage training and development on how to spot and tackle bullying, harassment and microaggressions in the workplace.
Whether you are a witness to micro-aggressions, experience verbal abuse or see something that just does not feel right, it is vital to speak up and challenge the behaviour, actions and raise awareness to drive the change and create a safe organisation.
Strong employee network groups can often provide safe spaces for diverse colleagues to find their voices and work together to drive change. Any form of Allyship should focus on making other people feel comfortable and consider the different elements of power in an organisation. Recognise that how you look at a certain situation may be different from a diverse or a more junior colleague.
Asking: What does it feel like? What does it sound like?
Benchmarking: Where are we now? Where do we want to go? What would it look like?
Considering: The elements of difference and power in an organisation. This could be reflecting job levels or diversity characteristics.
Designated workplace support on reporting bullying, harassment and whistleblowing. If you create an action plan really think about the impact of this, work with colleagues to ensure engagement and varied input and regularly review it, as this should be a live document and not just a tick-box exercise.
Culture is not what is written in our policies, values, brand. It’s the everyday behaviours that happen in every corner of the workspace, from senior leadership down to all members of the support staff and reflected in how the medical staff treat each other and treat their patients.