Two major organizations that I worked for in my corporate career had safety as their number one value. One of those organizations sent workers out in vans and trucks, up poles, down pits, under houses, in roofs. The other organization had workers out on mines, oil rigs, ships and working in manufacturing environments.
Both organizations wanted all workers to be safe and to go home alive at night and as healthy as they left their families and their homes that morning.
The leaders of those organizations, myself included, were accountable to live and breathe safety as our number one value. How? Through deliberate, mindful, purposeful and process driven role modelling of the right behaviors.
Here’s how it was done:
- Safety was the first agenda item in all meetings;
- All scorecards included a measure linked to safety performance;
- Regular safety audits of workplace, including non-field environments, were conducted;
- Recognition of best practice and celebration of great behaviors that led to safer workplaces.
- As a result of deliberate, mindful, purposeful and process driven actions by leaders, creating and maintaining safety work environments became entrenched behaviors, and as a result the safety performance lifted.
This is pretty basic stuff to any of you that have ever worked in an environment where particularly physical safety is paramount. But basic, simple, deliberate, mindful and purposeful actions work.
I love asking what if?
So here goes again. Think about your workplace.
- What if Gender Equality was the number one priority and value in your organization?
- What if Gender Equality was the first agenda item for all your meetings, across the company?
- What if all your company scorecards included a measure linked to Gender Equality performance?
- What if regular Gender Equality audits of your workplace were conducted?
- What if your workplace recognized, rewarded and celebrated great behaviors that led to a Gender Equal workforce?
I wonder what your organization would look like, feel like and perform like if there was deliberate, mindful, purposeful and process driven actions by all leaders, by all people in your organization to achieve gender equality? Food for thought right?
Why Leaders Ask Me To Do What I Do
This is pretty basic stuff to me. But I work every, single day of my life on inclusion, diversity and gender equality initiatives. Gender equality is of paramount importance to me. It’s why leaders ask me to do what I do. To advise them how to start or accelerate basic, simple, deliberate, mindful and purposeful actions that are effective. And, by effective, I mean they are crystal clear they want to create workplaces that work, for everyone.
The old saying is that a fish rots from the head. Organizations can choose to rot or flourish from the head. When organizational leaders get as deliberate, mindful and purposeful about gender equality as they are about safety, financial performance and customer satisfaction, they’ll start to reap the benefits of a high performance, gender equal and inclusive workplace.
I’d love to talk to more organizational leaders about how to get deliberate, mindful and purposeful about gender equality. (By the way, deliberate, mindful and purposeful is my polite code for get sh*t done about gender equality!)
To #GSD on gender equality in your organization write to me: michelle@michelleredfern.com
