Every business needs to create a workplace where employees can feel safe and able to exist as themselves without fear of retaliation or firing. Unfortunately, many workplaces aren’t safe for this, and even fewer pay their employees fairly regardless of gender, race, or ability.
If you want your company to be a space for everyone to work, you must ensure your employees are clued in on this. These are the top ways businesses can educate employees on workplace discrimination to create a better space for everyone.
Yearly Training
The very bare minimum you can do is create yearly training opportunities for everyone who works for you. This means new training, new discussions, and new interviews with current employees of every level- all the way up to the CEO- to discuss what might happen if you can’t get these gear changes.
Don’t do the same exact training every single year. A great option for many is to change the training based on what topics are at the forefront of the public consciousness that year and what might come up in the office in conversation. Although this may seem difficult to do, having these conversations can allow people to feel more welcome and wanted in their workplace if they’re at the heart of this discussion.
Being Clear in Hiring
When you hire new workers, you must make sure they understand their expectations. This isn’t just in what work they do, but also in their behavior and how they interact with other workers. This may feel like it’s going overboard. Still, if you make it obvious from day one that racists or bigotry won’t be tolerated: they’ll be less likely to think they can exhibit this behavior, and it may force them to reflect on why they hold the beliefs they do.
Research into Biases
Everyone holds at least one bias they may not recognize. Unfortunately, the leading cause of discrimination cases is when people take the biases and turn them into hateful actions against people that can’t control what they’re hated for. Because of this, it’s vital to research what biases might be affecting your company even now. This means researching your hiring practices, looking into who’s promoted the most, and figuring out if the numbers are fair or if they should be reexamined.
Creating Open Spaces for Discussion
Employees should be encouraged to discuss what’s on their minds. Do they feel like they’ve been discriminated against? Are they worried about being hated, or do they have problems with behavior they’ve seen carried out in the office? Talk to your employees, listen to their concerns, and take action so that they don’t have to fear this type of issue in the future.
There Are No Reasons to Allow A Workplace to Fail Due to Discrimination
Although it’s vital that there’s no discrimination in your business, it’s also important to recognize that this is a growing process, and it doesn’t all happen at once. Although we would all love for every company to be on the right side of history suddenly: it’s up to us to make it happen.
