The single biggest reason that people leave a company is down to poor management. Within that are several sub-sections, but one is a lack of equality.
It is this simple – if you want to run a modern office, keep your employees and attract new talent when you need to, you should always ensure that your business is run fairly. This means offering equality and diversity for all employees, regardless of any factor in their lives.
If you’ve read the news lately you’ll know that equality is a hot topic. Quite rightly so, we are demanding to be treated equally, whether male, female or non-binary, heterosexual or homosexual, whether someone does or doesn’t have a disability, race, religion, culture, or anything else which may make us apparently ‘different’ from others in the office space.
Equality is a difficult subject to talk about, and it’s actually one that we should never need to talk about.
Surely being treated equally is a given?
Here at Calibre Office Furniture, we’re passionate about ensuring that everyone is treated fairly, regardless of any facet of their personality or background. A person goes to work in order to do a job, and they should be offered opportunities based upon their ability to do that job, and nothing else. If you’re sat around a conference table, it’s important to allow everyone the opportunity to speak up and interject ideas, and that all of those ideas are listened to with respect and care. The ideas which are sensible for the business can be taken forward, but everyone should be thanked for their input.
By showing favouritism or discrimination against any member of staff you are not only putting yourself at risk of very hot water in terms of possible legal action, if proven, but you’re also ruining the morale within your business.
We all know that every single office runs on morale in terms of productivity. If your staff feel good, they work better; if your staff devalued and ignored, they aren’t going to work to the best of their ability.
So, how can you ensure equality within your office? It’s actually very easy.
- When hiring new staff, ensure that you judge people based on their ability to do the job only
- Ensure that your office seating plan is fair, comfortable, and supportive for all
- Give everyone the same opportunities
- Listen to all ideas that appear around meeting tables, and don’t ignore an idea simply because it came from a lower band of staff
(e.g. a junior)
- Offer equality and diversity training for all staff members, as part of their mandatory training
- Set up clear guidelines to inform staff of what they should do should they feel they are not being treated fairly, e.g. a policy to follow
- Ensure that salary bands within your organisation are fair across the board, e.g. that you have increments people work up to, usually earning an increment as they reach a year’s employment, two year’s, etc
- Have an open door policy for all staff members to approach management if they feel they need to talk about any issue, and ensure that everyone is listened to and supported in the same way
As you can see, equality really comes down to ensuring that everyone is treated in the same way and that nobody receives either preferential treatment or detrimental treatment, based on anything to do with their background, e.g. age, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, etc.
The fact that we still need to talk about equality in this day and age is ridiculous, but it’s still an issue. Ensuring that it isn’t an issue in your workplace will make your office a happy and harmonious place to work, but it will also make it a fair place.
Morale will rise as a result of this, and new talent will be attracted to your space because you treat everyone with the fairness and respect they deserve.