Although, there are a variety of progressive behaviours that could be undertaken at a workplace, we are, here, trying to talk about how to progressively liberalize workplace culture that benefit everyone. It is necessary, now more than ever, that we not only churn out good employees but also good people. There should be reasons for an employee to love her workplace not only because it pays her well but also because she likes her colleagues and actually believes that she belongs there. Well, this change does not solely dependent upon the HR’s instrumentality but, in fact, the company’s policies and HR’s intervention together brings the company and its people together.
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So, lets try to comprehend what ways to inculcate good behaviour and empathy among your employees.
Diversity
A workplace should work towards making a team of as diverse people as possible while also keeping their skillsets in mind. Diversity in race, caste, gender, sexuality, region, age and other in aspects of employees can help create considerably more opportunities for minorities. As much as it is embracing each others cultures, when you work with diverse people you also learn to work with their discrete ways of working through a task, thus it generates mutual respect among the employees.
Paid Maternity/Paternity Leave
In order to have a progressive workplace, an employer must provide its employees with aids to help them grow and sustain. Paid maternity and paternity leaves not only becomes essential for the parents-to-be to support them at a pivot moment of their lives, but it also improves and strengthens the bond and trust between the two. It becomes all the more necessary if the employee chooses to be a single parent. Many companies, these days, are being encouraged to voluntarily give and even mandate paid maternity and paternity leaves according to their state’s child welfare guidelines. This deed of financial security will at least reduce some stress for the already nervous and vulnerable parents. Some studies have a fool-proof theory that at the end of this leave almost all parents are more than eager to come back and resume work.
Rectify the wage gap
Even though, a company’s HR goes out of their way to celebrate Women’s Day and/or Mother’s Day while there is still a substantial wage gap between the it’s male and female employees then might as well consult your boss and fire all the women employees because, literally there is no point. One can’t celebrate a working woman with a prevalent wage gap still existing. The most reasonable way to celebrate the working women is to pay them the salaries they much deserve for their work and on time. So before going out of your way, HRs, you must first check the salary logs.
Avoiding the hierarchical system
Historically, it has been suggested that hierarchies, more often than not, promotes inequality in multiple forms. It creates disparity and sometimes even, toxic power structures. Although, it is still subjective, some studies on employee development pushes the viewpoint of establishing egalitarian systems at workplace. Such like flat systems or lateral structure of organization. A decentralized system. They tend to enhance colleagues relations, one with less conflicts and ego clashes and more meaning. It improves cooperativeness among employees and gives a stronger sense of teamwork. However, you could even follow the trial and error method for your company and experiment with differing types of organizational structure and workout for yourself which type results in maximum employee development as well as productivity.
Intolerance policy for any kind of sexual violence
It shouldn’t have taken a global wave of MeToo stories and exhausting revisions of the same by victims of sexual violence of one kind or the other, for organisations to realize their policies for acts of sexual violence. Though, social media and online platforms were instrumental in empowering the victims to share their stories, at the end of the day, they still had to live with their stories and that is horrendous. All employees should be given absolute security and companies should follow strict and effective policies against any form of sexual violation. Companies should establish an absolute unbiased committee to investigate and take corrective actions whenever there is a breach. They should also indulge into educating employees about the preventive measures and awareness to avert violations.
Lately, there have been an astronomical rise in the number of online trolls harassing and threatening people (celebrity or not) for their lives, often these trolls are ignored without any consequences whatsoever. These trolls might have some sense of dread if their actions had consequences. If corporates started taking attentions of their employees’ indecent behaviour even when its online, then there are chances for the number of trolls to go down, steadily if not substantially.
This was our list of progressive actions a company could undertake to improve its workplace culture.
