Creating a safe and conducive work environment as we battle COVID-19

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Every employee must feel welcomed, safe and confident with their self-defined identities. It is the responsibility of the employer to create such an environment. It boosts confidence and creates a sense of belonging. It’s essential that today’s business leaders create safe and inclusive workplaces where workers feel comfortable and welcomed.

This type of environment increases worker satisfaction and, ultimately, organizational outcomes. It reduces the risk levels in the whiles a happy workplace is created. Obviously this will lead to increase in revenue.

The path toward diversity and inclusion is challenging, however. Accordingly, effective leaders must guide staff members in learning to accept one another.

Contemporary executives recognize that diversity and inclusion are more than buzzwords. It’s not enough to simply hire people from different backgrounds. All staff members must also feel welcome, safe and confident with their self-defined identities. A deliberate effort must be made to design such an environment.

Organizational leaders must be aided with the tips in creating a safe and inclusive workplace.

Make inclusion and diversity a priority: There’s no place or time when discrimination is acceptable. In the workplace, leaders must address bias and inclusion problems immediately.

Duly, organizational leaders must confront discrimination head on and with steadfast resolve. When doing so, it’s important to clarify that biased and discriminatory behaviour is unacceptable in the workplace.

Furthermore, leaders must make a concerted and public effort to increase awareness that diversity and inclusion is a corporate priority. In one form or another, organizational leadership should expose staff members to messages to keep a corporate culture of inclusion at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

One way to do this is to include diversity and inclusion initiatives as part of professional development. By ingraining these values into all corporate processes, executives can ensure that diversity and inclusion are eternal parts of organizational culture.

Support all employees culturally and professionally: Most often, many organizations only recognize mainstream celebrations, such as Christmas and Thanksgiving Day. Enterprise leaders can bolster diversity and inclusion by celebrating the traditions and beliefs of all cultures.

Promoting cultural inclusion requires a true understanding of all workers’ backgrounds. This could include providing paid time off so that staff members can have elaborate family holidays that are relevant to their ethnicity. Old school associations and other association membership can be a rallying point of getting employees to appreciate the essence of diversity and inclusion.

Leaders must also promote career development for staff members of all backgrounds. All workers should have the same access to professional opportunities.

Leaders can foster this environment by equally encouraging all qualified staff members to pursue corporate training and opportunities for advancement. In action, this could be as simple as praising workers for good performance or establishing written, actionable goals to help staff members advance their career.

Maintain a safe work environment: Inclusive workplace safety policy encompasses more than establishing basic guidelines. Accordingly, effective executive leaders ensure that the workplace is safe for all. This encompasses establishing clearly defined expectations and highlights the fact that all groups are entitled to a safe and comfortable work environment regardless of ethnicity, gender, nationality or orientation.

Inclusive environment design is one way to promote a safe work space where workers are comfortable and familiar with each other. For instance, organizational leaders can design a dining area that encourages workers to share meals together. This kind of setting leads to interesting conversations and creates a safe place for staff members to share their thoughts.

Larger organizations may need to do more to create a unified workforce. For instance, employee networks are an effective way to create a sense of community while enabling staff members to share their ideas.

Make diversity and inclusion a part of corporate culture: A corporate culture of diversity and inclusion must start with top-level management. Organizational founders and executives must have a real desire to create a diverse and inclusive workplace.

Developing diversity and inclusion requires a two-pronged approach – internal and external development. A sincere desire to promote inclusion will reveal itself in enterprise practices, such as hiring and career advancement. Also, it’s important to hire job candidates who believe in and understand the importance of diversity and inclusion.

Its human nature for people to hire others that make them feel comfortable. Accordingly, it’s essential that human resources practitioners and hiring managers are culturally competent and sensitive towards diversity and inclusion.

Organizational leadership sets the tone for inclusion and diversity. By taking an honest look at recruiting and inclusion policies, corporate heads can build bridges that foster enduring fairness and inclusion in the workplace. There are very competent job seekers with diverse backgrounds, they can attract such talent with very practicable desire to embrace inclusion and diversity.

Source: thepeoplespace.com and Bright Ampadu Okyere (An SDG Advocate) and Lead Partner SDG Alliance-Ghana

Email: sdgallianceghana@gmail.com Twitter: @ghanasdg Facebook: SDG Alliance-Ghana Tel. # 0244204664