Inclusion strategies
1. I am treated fairly on our team.
Fairness is subjective. If the people on your team don’t feel they’re being treated fairly, it may be because there is discriminationopens a new window, which needs to be addressed immediately. We all have implicit biasopens a new window and often it is unconscious. Awareness can reduce the damage caused. It could also be because they do not trust your motivesopens a new window or understand your decision-making processesopens a new window. In all cases, these links will bring you to resources that can help.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that you don’t always feel you’re treated fairly on our team. I want to understand what that means so that I can take action. Please use [this anonymous method*] to share examples of how you feel you or someone else are not being treated fairly on our team. I really appreciate your help in eliminating any intentional or unintentional bias.”
Or
“Some of you shared that you don’t always feel you’re treated fairly on our team. We’re going to come together to learn more about how that might happen and how we can do better. This one-hour Implicit bias workshop will happen on [date/time/location].”
2. My colleagues treat me with respect.
This is so critical to a psychologically safe team. You as a leader can be as respectful as humanly possible, but if your team members are disrespectful towards each other, they will never feel safe. It is not practical for you to police every interaction, so you need to have the team develop their own agreement about how they will interact, and you need to have a process for them to hold each other accountable. It should only be when this process fails that they need to come to you to enforce respect. You could begin with the Putting civility and respect on the agendaopens a new window workshop to determine what matters to your team members. You could also develop a Team agreementopens a new window by sitting down with each team member to create an agreement that everyone can agree to.
You could also use the Psychologically safe interactionsopens a new window workshop to help people better understand the unintended consequences of their words and behaviours.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that not all team interactions are respectful. We all deserve to have a safe working environment, and this goes beyond physical safety to psychological safety. This means we interact and communicate in ways that do no harm to others. This 3-hour Psychologically safe interactions workshop will happen on [date/time/location]. Together we will think about and discuss the type of work environment we want to create. In this workshop, we will examine the unintended consequences of what we say and do, the assumptions we make about others and the meaning of moral courage for our workplace.”
3. I feel comfortable being myself at work.
Not everyone wants to share every aspect of who they are at work. The goal is to make it safe to do so, rather than expecting or forcing it. To make it safe to be yourself means you don't have to hide any part of yourself for fear of judgment, ridicule or harassment. Workshops on Psychological and social supportopens a new window, Implicit biasopens a new window or Civility and respectopens a new window may help. Check out each of these workshops and decide which might be most effective for your team. This is another situation where the development of a Team agreementopens a new window could be helpful.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that you don’t always feel comfortable being yourself at work. I want to understand what that means so that I can take action. Please use [this anonymous method*] to share examples of where you or someone else may not feel comfortable being themselves at work. I really appreciate your help in making this a more inclusive work team.”
Or
“Some of you shared that you don’t always feel comfortable being yourself at work. We’re going to come together to learn more about how that might happen unintentionally and how we can do better. This one-hour Implicit bias workshop will happen on [date/time/location].”
4. If someone outside of our team was being difficult, my team members would support me.
Knowing that someone supports you is an important part of psychological safety. The more your team members support each other, the more they’ll feel safe to share concerns and challenges. This in turn can help avert crises or bigger problems from being hidden or allowed to grow. The Team agreement processopens a new window can be used to decide what being supportive means to your team members, and the specific actions that will either reinforce or take away from this.
Some of the questions in Conversation starters for psychological health and safetyopens a new window may also be useful in starting a discussion about the type of support your team members want.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Thank you for your feedback in the Psychologically safe team assessment. As part of our continual improvement, we’ll now engage in a team agreement process. This will allow you to tell me what kind of team environment is ideal for us and how we can better support each other.”
Or
“Some of you shared that you don’t feel your team members would support you if someone outside of your team was being difficult. I want to understand the type of support you’d want to receive if this happened, both from me and from others on the team. Please use [this anonymous method*] to share your thoughts on what would be most appreciated as well as any examples of the difficulties you might face with people outside of our team.”
5. Each of my team members has a voice in establishing work priorities.
Priorities may be outside the authority of team members, and sometimes even outside your authority as a leader. Engaging team members in a discussion about what they can influence can boost commitment and motivation. Even when the priority is not negotiable, engaging team members in how they will meet work priorities and deadlines can be beneficial. It’s critical to ensure that every member of the team is encouraged to contribute to these conversations. To arrive at an approach to do this effectively, you can use the Involvement and influenceopens a new window workshop with your team.
The team activity Identify and overcome obstaclesopens a new window could be used at any time to revisit or discuss priorities.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that you feel that not all team members have a voice in establishing work priorities. While some priorities are outside of even my control, I do want everyone to know that your opinions and ideas matter. Because this can mean different things to different people, we will come together to define involvement and influence for our team. This 2.5-hour workshop will happen on [date/time/location]. Please come prepared to make a positive contribution by thinking of creative ideas related to how your voice gets heard and how your opinions are considered in decision-making that impacts your job.”
Or
“Some of you shared that you feel that not all team members have a voice in establishing work priorities. While some priorities are outside of even my control, I do want everyone to know that your opinions and ideas matter. We will come together to do a team exercise that will help us come up with a process to do this more effectively.”
[For a more complete explanation of what the team will be asked to do, and to share questions with them in advance, see Identify and overcome obstaclesopens a new window.]
6. I feel safe working with my team.
Feeling physically safe has as much to do with being intimidated or threatened by others as it may have to do with other safety protocols. To understand what this actually means, you can either engage each team member personally to ask what feeling safe on the team means to them, or you could facilitate the Protection of physical safetyopens a new window workshop or the Psychological protectionopens a new window workshop, depending on where you feel the greatest need is.
Some of the questions in Conversation starters for psychological health and safetyopens a new window may also be useful in starting a discussion about what could improve psychological safety for your team.
More strategies are available at Protect your team against psychological injuryopens a new window.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that you don’t always feel safe working with your team. I want to understand what that means so I can take action. Please use [this anonymous method*] to share examples of where you or someone else might not feel physically or psychologically safe.”
7. I would feel comfortable reaching out to members of my team for help.
As a leader, you want to create a relationship where team members feel safe reaching out to you, but if they’re more comfortable reaching out to each other, you’re still supporting psychological safety. To improve the giving and receiving of help, you may want to facilitate the Psychological and social supportopens a new window workshop. Team activities and events, such as Volunteer togetheropens a new window, can also help foster trust.
Developing a Team purpose statementopens a new window may also help to reinforce your team cohesion.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that you don’t feel comfortable reaching out to members of our team for help. Let’s get together to explore the possible reasons for this. This 2.5-hour workshop will happen on [date/time/location]. Please come prepared to make a positive contribution by thinking about the type of support you’re able to give, and the type of support you’d like to receive from other members of the team.”
8. My team is respectful of different cultures.
Teams that are not respectful of different cultures can exist when there is a lack of understanding of newcomersopens a new window to this country, implicit biasopens a new window in how people interact on your team, or discriminationopens a new window. In addition to taking advantage of these resources, consider asking your team members how they demonstrate respect for different cultures in the workplace, and begin a conversation that leads to an agreement about how all team members will show respect going forward.
The Civility and respect workshopopens a new window brings your team together to develop a shared understanding of what respect means to them, and what changes they’d like to make to the ways they interact.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that you don’t always feel that our team is respectful of different cultures. I want to understand what that means so that I can take action. Please use [this anonymous method*] to share examples of where you or someone else may feel they’re not being respected. I really appreciate your help in making this a more inclusive work team.”
Or
“Some of you shared that you don’t always feel our team is respectful of different cultures. We’re going to come together to learn more about how that might happen unintentionally and how we can do better. This one-hour Implicit bias workshop will happen on [date/time/location].”
9. Our team is free of discrimination.
If there’s the risk of discrimination in the workplace, human rights legislation in Canada requires that you take action to stop it. See Potential legal concernsopens a new window for more information.
To be preventative, the Implicit biasopens a new window workshop can help each team member safely recognize how they may be unintentionally biased against others, and how that bias may show up as microaggressions, stigma or discrimination. If you don’t have time for the workshop, there are team activities that you could use, including Intersectionalityopens a new window and Microaggressionsopens a new window.
If the issue is bigger than just your team, you may want to facilitate a workshop on Organizational cultureopens a new window which will include discussion about values, being part of a community, accountability, trust and diversity.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that there may sometimes be discrimination here. This is never acceptable. I would like all team members to reflect on what may be or feel like discrimination and share these answers anonymously with me through [this anonymous method*], where you don’t have to share any identifying information. I also encourage anyone who has experienced discrimination at work to come and see [me or the appropriate person] so that [I or they] can immediately address this situation.”
Or
“Some of you shared that there may sometimes be discrimination here. This is never acceptable. We’re going to come together to learn more about how that might happen unintentionally and how we can do better. This one-hour Implicit bias workshop will happen on [date/time/location].”
10. I feel comfortable speaking up when I don’t agree with my team members.
Setting the foundation for how a team interacts, especially when there’s a difference of opinion, is critical. Psychologically safe interactionsopens a new window is a workshop you can facilitate that can help you do this. Implicit biasopens a new window is another workshop that can be helpful where one or more people on the team have different experiences or perspectives that may not be heard or valued equally.
Sometimes the reason people don’t feel safe speaking up has more to do with their own comfort level than with the responses for others. The activity What were you thinking?opens a new window helps your team members consider whether their assumptions about others are objective. You can also use the activity Communicating with clarityopens a new window to help team members gain confidence that what they intend to say is less likely to be misinterpreted.
To go even further, you could consider whether you are an inclusive leaderopens a new window, and if there are additional strategies opens a new window you could use to improve psychological safety for everyone.
If this is an area you want to address, consider following up with your team members for more insight, adapting the suggested wording below:
“Some of you shared that you don’t always feel comfortable speaking up when you disagree with a team member. This may be because of the reaction of team members to a difference of opinion, or because you don’t feel comfortable disagreeing. Or it may be something else. We want to support healthy and respectful debate to help us consider our blind spots and improve our ability to innovate. I need your help in understanding what training or resources we need to make speaking up comfortable for everyone. Please use [this anonymous method*] to share what might make it uncomfortable for you or any of your colleagues to speak up when they don’t agree with a team member.”
*Note: The term "anonymous method" refers to a specific approach the leader has in place to gather feedback without any identifying information. Some approaches include an online platform, suggestion box, online survey, or a dedicated team email address that will not identify the sender. Be sure to replace “[this anonymous method*]” in the “Explore further” suggested wording with clear instructions on how they can provide their feedback anonymously.