Empowering everyone to thrive in work: Monday Matters #5

As ‘Diversity’ and ‘Representation’ finally start to become central aspirations of more businesses (much of this desire sparked by both the important work of the Black Lives Matter movement and the impact of the pandemic), it is important for leaders to take stock of not just whether their organisation is ‘diverse’ but also if it is actually an environment in which all people are empowered to thrive.

Many of the “tried and tested” ways of running a business or managing a team were never designed for empowering diverse people to thrive within work. Not only is a lot of thinking around building motivated teams based off of research that happened back in the 60s & 70s (when many sectors and large corporations were even more homogenous than they are now), but many of the people that continue to be in positions of power were in positions of power before there was ever real legislation around discrimination in the workplace.

The equality act only came into force in the workplace in 2010, it amalgamated different legislation that promoted fairness and equality. The earliest of those was the Equal Pay Act of 1970 which was followed 5 years later by broader sex & race discrimination acts. Whereas legislation around sexual orientation, religion or belief was introduced a mere 17 years ago.

But legislation only goes so far, the real change comes from adapting culture and behaviours. Many of us continue to feel stifled or excluded in traditional workplaces because work was not designed with us in mind. Ahead of the launch of our 6 month program bringing together young people and small businesses we’ve re-articulated our values so that we can ensure we continue to create a culture in which everyone we work with is empowered to thrive. We wanted to share them along with actions you might take to help you provoke change in your own workplace.

Cherish diversity and build for belonging

We believe diversity brings a depth to work and collaboration that homogenous teams lack. But we also think simply working with or hiring diverse people isn’t enough. All too often we see organisations hiring for diversity without deeply believing in the value of diversity. Managers often still expect all of their team members to fit neatly within a box or to fall in line with their way thinking. We often work with teams to get them to really unearth their individual differences and explore how this contributes to their experience of work. This helps people to build deeper connections and discover tangible things they can change to create an environment where people feel able to use their skills and experience in a way that works for them.

Champion flexibility

Given that we are all unique and our lives are constantly changing we believe that work should flex around the needs of individuals as much as possible - this ensures no-one is locked out of work unnecessarily. Trusting people to choose how and when they work can be absolutely transformative to an individual’s performance and happiness. We decided to offer flexible work placements to our interns not only so that they could fit work around their needs and other commitments but also because we believe it develops people’s self-awareness, autonomy and capacity to take ownership and responsibility of their decisions. The amount of hoops that many companies make grown adults jump through to simply take a morning off as annual leave is not only an unproductive use of everyone’s time but it also deters people from owning their decisions in other areas of work.

Strive for equity

We're creating new approaches that prioritise equitable outcomes for people. The reason we provide paid work experience for young people is because we believe everyone’s time and contributions should be valued and respected. We also know that some people have had a head start in life due to privileges that others have not been afforded so when it comes to working with multiple freelance suppliers we ensure we pay those who do the same type of work the same amount - and if we feel someone is undercharging for a service we let them know and ask them to charge us what we think they are worth.

Equity is not just about fair pay. It’s also about distribution of power and opportunities. We became experts in facilitation (and approaches to collaboration more broadly) so that we could help teams to share power and decision-making as well as create spaces where people feel supported to voice their opinions and ideas.

We also believe proactive openness and transparency are key to creating a more equitable company or team. I’ve met so many leaders who’ve said things like “I’d share the budget if they ever asked me to” or “well if they told me they wanted to be promoted I might’ve considered them”. The fact is that often people don’t know what they are or aren’t allowed to ask for, or might not even know who to ask. The connections people create, and the flow of information within companies, often work in favour of certain types of people and locks others out from opportunities. Using tools such as a Slack or Notion increases transparency for day-to-day topics but proactively reaching out and sharing information with people you don’t often connect with is also important in order to ensure everyone is empowered to thrive.

Lead through action

We 'practice what we preach' and adopt the approaches that exemplify what we so often teach our clients. We believe the best way of creating change is to set a positive example to others. For example if you want your teammates to provide more useful feedback to one another you need to make sure you model this in your own relationships. When it comes to ‘ways of working’, or company culture, change happens much faster if people can see what that change might look like rather than reading endless documents and emails explaining the change leaders want to see.

Through our consultancy work with teams many have said that it is often the first time in their working life that they’ve experienced feeling seen and understood. And even in our shorter training sessions we find people learn best when they can actually experience practices in action

Work with us to empower people to thrive

We’re launching our innovative 6 month work placement program which will convene a community of small businesses, freelancers and underemployed young people to work and learn together. The businesses on the program will get the chance to build their management, leadership and collaboration skills through taking part in our extensive training workshops, as well as receiving 1-2-1 and group coaching sessions to help you to thrive in your work. Plus you’ll gain access to our pool of diverse interns who can work with you on flexible basis - not only will this help you hone your leadership and management skills but it will also provide you and your team for hands-on support when you need it.

Book a call or email us to find out how we can work together to help you build an empowered team and better working environment.