By Gina Sanchez-Founding Partner
The generally accepted definition of discrimination in the workplace is when a person or a group of people is treated unfairly or unequally because of specific characteristics. These protected characteristics include race, ethnicity, gender identity, age, disability, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or national origin.
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Psychological Low Down on Discrimination We humans, are truly remarkable in our abilities and achievement potential. However, the very same cognitive systems that enable us to be brilliant, and at a very basic needs level – to survive – can potentially enable the very worst of humanity to show up. One such phenomenon is discrimination. Fundamentally discrimination derives from our brain’s mechanisms to quickly make sense of our surroundings.. For example, in the UK, if we see someone in a Hi-Vis jacket carrying a striped pole with a big circle attached to its top, we know that this person is a ‘lollipop lady’ or ‘lollipop man’, which means that there probably a school in the near vicinity and we need to take care of children crossing the road. This ability to quickly understand a situation unfolding in front of us forms ‘schemas’ in our brain that are added to as we experience more and more different life scenarios. Without these schemas, we would understand very little of life and the world. Unfortunately, the speed at which we process information into our schemas can lead us to stereotype situations and people, which can lead to discrimination and prejudice. If these unpleasant traits go unchallenged and, sadly enabled by others with misguided views, the discrimination can become embedded leading to inhumane and unevolved behaviour. |
Workplace discrimination can happen between co-workers, between employees and their bosses or even between employers and potential employees. In many countries workplace discrimination is illegal. However, the threat of prosecution doesn’t seem to help eradicate such destructive and invasive behaviour, which not only impacts the mental health of individuals but will stunt the growth, efficacy and reputation of the organization itself.
My own encounters with discrimination are sadly numerous. The US-born daughter of Hispanic immigrants, I grew up never being quite white enough, brown enough, or anything enough to fit into any box. In school, when I proved to be an overachiever and smarter than my average classmates, I was a source of confusion and a challenge for my teachers. One such teacher, when asked for additional help in calculus, responded that I shouldn’t worry too much as it must be a fluke that I, ‘a Mexican’, should even be so far in the subject.
In university, I discovered that it wasn’t just my ethnic heritage that seemed to be a problem for others. Walking up the aisle at my Graduation to give one of the commencement speeches, I was taunted for being a woman. According to these now supposedly ‘educated’
graduates, there was no way a woman would have reached such honours solely because of her academic acumen; it must have been the sexual favours she was willing to dole out.
Entering the corporate workplace I experienced more of the same treatment. Fresh out of University I was approached by a major news outlet to become one of their Latin American correspondents. About three months into the gig, I was asked to travel to the US headquarters of said outlet to do some screen testing to be a Spanish language newsreader. I had never intended to be a newsreader and was a bit daunted by the request, but being young and eager, I packed my bag and flew to HQ. The screen test was quick and painful.
“She’s too ethnic looking,” yelled the editor.
“What the ‘bleep’ does that mean,” responded the producer who had invited me over. “She’s for another market. It shouldn’t matter,” he added.
I’ve always been a bit of a rebel and troublemaker, so I got up and walked off the set. To this day I’m not sure whether I was angrier about the comments or about being discussed like an item off the saleroom floor.
Then came a more shocking discovery. Believing that things within the hallowed halls of the NGO Movement would be different – after all, we were all brothers and sisters of one Earth – I walked away from my career in journalism and naively walked into the world of the not-for-profit sector believing that discrimination was what we collectively fought externally. However, an absence of discrimination was not to be.
I remember the first time I joined an international meeting of national office representatives of a particular confederation. At the time I was working in a small, impoverished country, and I began to notice that there was a tendency to ignore me. Often in those days of international meetings, I witnessed other colleagues from the global south receiving the same treatment. I recall asking for the floor at least half a dozen times, but never seemed to be put on the speakers’ list. I also recall the collective jaw drop when I was finally allowed to speak; not only did I speak clearly and efficiently, what I had to say made sense.
When you are faced with bias, prejudice and discrimination all your life, you rightly or wrongly, learn to roll with most of the punches, as that’s what you’re told to do – by those who also experienced discrimination but also by those who should have known better. By the time I arrived in Europe, I had found my voice and knew how to use it. Often witnessing horrific behaviour and attitudes from some of my colleagues. I would not readily let anyone bully, taunt, judge or discriminate against me or anyone else in my presence. Although I always spoke up as did many of my other colleagues, a large number of managers were clearly not trained to handle such behaviour, which led to most situations being ignored and therefore the discrimination being condoned.
The fact is that workplace discrimination is rampant; it is often difficult to identify, document and/or prove. It often gets dismissed and it involves feelings which are many times hard to describe. It might not be as overt as it once was but no matter how subtle, it is harmful—very harmful.
The average adult spends more waking hours in the workplace than at home or with friends and family. For some, the totality of their social interactions happens in the workplace. So, any difference in treatment, attitude or approach is magnified.
Why workplace discrimination needs to be dealt with effectively?
Beyond the legality of the issue, discrimination in your place of employment can lead to lack of motivation, depression, feelings of resentment and higher levels of stress.¹ It can affect performance of the individual, the team and even the organization. Staff who become fed up with a situation will leave, taking all their experience and knowledge with them. Some will go on to share their negative experience with others thereby damaging an NGOs reputation.
Our role as humans is to speak up—I have no doubt about that. But our role as managers is equally as important, if not more so. If your organization doesn’t have clear rules, policies and procedures, insist on going through the process of getting them. Use them. Update them. Follow up. Familiarize yourself with your local/national legislation.
At Spatial Awareness we have been noticing a very welcomed trend. Not-for-profits are investing time and money in revisiting their organizational cultures. Bosses are still perplexed about what exactly it is, but they are more willing to roll up their sleeves and put in the work that needs to take place to create respectful workplaces.
Many organizations are running audits to ensure all their policies and procedures are in place and updated to address any situation of discrimination.
Whilst we believe that there are no shortcuts to establish respectful, positive, progressive places of work, we would like to offer you some tips for addressing the issue.
Top Tips
- Create a safe space for employees to air their grievances. Nominate persons of trust or mentors and counsellors who employees can turn to in moments of crisis. Train these advisors to provide a listening ear and sound advice.
- Keep notes of recurring incidents.
- Review company policies and local/regional/national legislation.
- Address issues as soon as they arise.
- Inform all employees of what is not acceptable and of the consequence’s
- Review your organization’s working culture frequently. Go beyond the box-ticking exercises.
If your organization wants to be ahead of the game, contact us here about our workshops reviewing and tackling Organizational Culture.
What to do if you are a target of workplace discriminations
Inform HR
Keep detailed notes of the incident, including names, dates, place
Consider contacting local government bodies charged with these issues
Seek the help and support of trusted colleagues
Be informed of your company’s policies and procedures
¹ https://www.eoc.org.uk/what-is-discrimination/
It’s been two weeks since Mental Health Awareness week began in the UK, encouraging us not only to develop better habits for our well-being but to do so specifically through connecting with nature. Now I’m all for these weeks of awareness; information crosses the threshold of our lives at such speed and abundance that bringing our attention to issues that are of actual importance, such as the health of your brain and mind, cannot be underestimated. However, what happens when our attention is then being sought for the next ‘Awareness’ day, week and month? For instance, this month is Zombie Awareness Month in the USA. Yes indeed, preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse is of equal import apparently. Clearly to protect our brains from becoming a starving Zombie, it is vital that we now quickly incorporate the new and/or better habits we learnt last week into our daily lives, but where do we start?
Unfortunately, snapping our fingers and wishing for our better and new habits to be instantly part of our daily lives isn’t a proven route to success – it takes time, planning and fundamentally understanding why we are changing our habits in the first place, otherwise, they fall by the wayside.
The condition of our mental health manifests itself in how we think, feel and behave. Influenced too readily by the speed of the world we live in; we can easily fall into the trap of repeating thoughts and behaviours that can result in causing us harm. Thankfully for less serious mental health conditions there are many solutions, and what’s even better, sometimes it’s the most obvious and simple steps we can take that help.
Why nature?
We evolved in the global landscapes of the savannah, the rainforest and the majesty of the mountains amongst many others. Our physical being is engineered to live and thrive in these landscapes – our eyes process more shades of green than any other colour. We are drawn to the complex shape of the fractal – think snowflakes, fern fronds and even a network of neurons. The bounty of nature feeds us way beyond food and water, it nurtures our brain and feeds our evolution. To say we should ‘connect’ with nature suggests it is distinct from our being, where, in fact, the truth is we have DISconnected and should be REconnecting with nature.
What can we do?
Reconnecting with nature does not mean finding one of the few areas left in the world untouched by human hand. Connecting with nature is simply connecting with ourselves and returning to a state of beneficial stress – yes, stress can be good for us. Excessive stress diminishes our ability to think and function effectively, so spending time in a restorative environment will restore us to our ‘factory settings’. This can be anywhere, such as a public park, woodland or if you’re lucky enough to have one – your garden. Now we are coming out of lockdown and summer is coming, we can also exercise in green spaces or join community schemes that grow and sell vegetables. These activities have all shown to improve well-being and self-esteem, with the added benefits of feeling more socially included and gaining new skills and healthier lifestyles – all through an increased connection with nature.
How does nature help?
Research on how environments help us to recover from ‘attentional fatigue’ revealed that effective landscapes were those that fulfilled four qualities:
- a place that stimulated our senses;
- being away from the demands of regular life;
- the extent to which the environment is removed from what you are used to – that is, you can still find peace in a park in the middle of a city providing the park is designed to block out as much of the surrounding city as possible; and
- the landscape is an environment where we can take part in activities that challenge us and improve our skills, such as rock climbing, swimming or gardening, alongside walking the dog or reading a book on a bench.
How do we change our habits?
Once we find our places of restoration how do we bring them into our lives? Introducing new habits or changing bad ones in our lives can be tricky. Intention to do better is sadly not enough. However, where breaking bad habits takes patience, replacing or developing new habits builds willpower, which creates a foundation for more success in many other areas of our lives.
Changing habits, building willpower – your five-point plan
- Decide who you want to be – healthier, kinder, or more reliable, for instance. Practice observing your own behaviour – ask yourself whether your habits bring you closer to who that person is;
- You may be familiar with the aphorism ‘fail to plan, plan to fail’. Planning is crucial to the success of habit forming. Decide ahead of time when and where your new habits will be ‘performed’. For example, if you want to take up gardening instead of binge-watching box sets, have your gardening gear perhaps sitting beside the front or back door ready to go. The fewer excuses we can give ourselves the easier we start to develop and look forward to our new habits;
- Choose a reward for after you’ve ‘performed’ your new habit. Our brains respond readily to rewards and while you form your new habits, you’re duping your brain into believing it really wants the new habit rather than the old one;
- Make small incremental steps – real change takes time. Taking your time to build up your new habit will also help you see the changes happening in real time; and
- Be patient, be consistent and be kind to yourself – change takes courage.
It’s a beautiful world out there, we may have lost our way but we’re making our way back one step at a time. Our well-being depends upon it.
If you and or your team would like to work with us to create new habits and routines, contact us at info@spatialawareness.org Let’s walk this path together.
Making sense of working from home
By Gina Sanchez—Leadership and Management Expert & Coach
For most of us, COVID-19 has pushed us unwillingly into our homes where we are now expected to work, rest and play in a limited space for the foreseeable future. We are finding it difficult to make sense of the world right now and that includes making sense of the way we work.
Before these life-changing times, many a helpful article and book written about working from home was useful in helping us create a unique working space away from kids, partners and other household interferences. Advice on having natural daylight to give us energy and even what coffeemaker or kettle was best to make refreshments was aplenty, but these are very different times and working from home is not the same; there are different pressures.
There is the pressure that if we work from home we are to be available and productive 24/7. These are exceptionally testing times for businesses and individuals alike but it does not change the fact that as employers we have a duty of care to ensure that our staff have the right equipment and access to the best tools to make remote working not only possible but also easier. Our biggest responsibility in good times and especially in challenging ones is to ensure the safety and well-being of our employees.
As employees we want to give tasks our best effort. We want to show that we are good workers even when at home during a pandemic. We don’t want our employers to think we’re slacking off—especially when working in our PJs or from our beds.
Here is where discipline comes in. Schedules, at the best of times, are a challenge but when working at home they become very useful tools to help us keep our sanity. For those of us who work in the global workplace we also have time zones and geographies to take into account. At times like this, we can afford to be kinder to ourselves with our schedules. We are all doing our best. One person’s ability to work an extra hour should not be added pressure on another colleague.
I once had a client who would wake up at 2 am with a brilliant idea and then felt she had to share it right at that moment. She would pull out her laptop from under her bed and would whip up an email to her entire team or the specific member who needed to receive it. One such member of her team found that very stressful. He felt that he needed to be more alert and on top of things even if it meant checking his emails at midnight. Now, those were not Corona times; those were normal everyday situations. When I met the team to try and help with team development, the stress came to the surface. After much unravelling of the problem we discovered that my client’s particular method of working was affecting not only members of her team but also the manager herself. Within one week of keeping to a schedule and the discipline of only working within that schedule the team felt lighter and more productive.
The new ways of working during these crisis-laden times are different. We are finding ourselves sitting for periods that are far too long. We also participate in many more video conferences and meetings than we are used to. These are strange times and whilst we happily moved from being in the office to working from home, we have not adjusted our ways of working.
So, whether you are a manager or a team member, whether you are working on your own or part of a bigger business in these times of additional stress, a different approach could be the answer.
Daily Schedule
Do you have a regular 9-5 job? The 8-hour work day still applies but it requires discipline. And then there are those who have a part-time work schedule. Being disciplined about your working hours can be difficult when working at home during this crisis because friends and loved ones are keeping to their own schedules and this can result in timing conflicts. Share your work schedule with not only your colleagues but friends and loved ones too. Then do your very best to stick to it. This does not mean being inflexible. It means looking after yourself. Unless you are a key worker, there is no excuse for not being able to shut down your work at quitting time. Don’t forget that happy hour was invented to be the transition time between work and play. (see below)
Keep to a routine
Many people who have chosen to work from home as their normal method enjoy the fact that every day is different. In the circumstances we are living today, this is not necessarily the case for everyone. We all need routine and structure. In these uncertain times, routine and structure can give us a sense of stability and safety. So, write out your schedule and incorporate some daily routines. Get up at the same time every weekday. Have breakfast at the same time. Break for lunch at the same time and incorporate coffee breaks but also exercise breaks. If you are able to go for a brisk walk or sit in the garden or on the balcony. Don’t forget to tick off each item on your schedule as you complete them, this will help you see what you have achieved that day.
Meetings and video calls
Whilst it’s great to be able to speak to each other face to face, we are now using video channels very frequently. Not only are these great tools for work, they are also, in many cases, our lifelines with our loved ones. We have reached a peak. We are having too many video calls and video meetings are lasting too long.
If before the crisis we were struggling to keep meetings down to an hour, now meetings can go on forever. Distance management experts all agree that video meetings should be shorter. I recommend 50-minute meetings. If your meeting has to go on for longer, I suggest you schedule in a break at that point. Encourage participants to stretch, go for a walk around the house or peek in on the kids.
You should not be having more than four 50-minute calls a day. Of course, there can be exceptions, but these should be seldom and few.
Socialize with Colleagues (Happy Hour)
An often overlooked event by most people who work from home regularly is socializing with colleagues. That Friday afternoon drink is very important. It allows you to stay connected with the workplace and catch up on the events of people’s lives outside of work. I have seen my social media feeds full of drink video conferences and they are genuinely fun. This is a great way to get creative and the one exception to the four video meetings rule.
So where does this quick review give us? The take away is that you have to take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of others and get the jobs that need you in order to get done. If you are over working yourself, you are unable to keep mentally as well as physically fit and that is not good for any one. Keep to your work and non-work schedules. Now that living together has taken on new meanings, your family will thank you and you will keep your sanity.
“In this seemingly endless cycle of failure, our inner voice becomes quite the Chatty Cathy.”
New Beginnings
Written by Mhairi Dunlop
Fresh starts and new beginnings – what’s not to love? A chance to right the wrongs and fix the past, then everything will be all right in the world and we can start living our lives ‘properly’. However, how many of us find ourselves trying to ‘right those wrongs’ by using the same old methods and tools? Before long we find ourselves in a rut of repetitive actions and repetitive results of mediocrity.
In this seemingly endless cycle of failure, our inner voice becomes quite the Chatty Cathy; growing in aptitude to crush our confidence, smash our self-esteem and destroy any belief that we are worthy of what others appear to achieve with ease. We resign ourselves to the ‘fact’ that we are lesser beings; that we were never destined to have a good job, career success or loving, caring partner. As if this were not bad enough, Chatty Cathy also ensures we understand that if we can have that job, career success and loving, caring partner we will attain that all important goal of ‘happiness’. So we wake every morning telling ourselves today will be different but nothing different happens – and very soon we find ourselves wondering just when did our lives become Groundhog Day?
That was me – albeit sitting on a balcony in Tokyo, but there I was, channelling David Byrne asking myself “How did I get here?” I was living a life that would have scored highly on the scale of society’s understanding of happiness – good job, travel
ling the world, great friends and a loving, caring family – but there I was, in a rut that just seemed to get deeper and I was becoming more and more despondent. Gina and I would chat daily, often discussing the day’s frustrations, invariably concluding ‘there must be a better way’. And so the seeds of Spatial Awareness were sown.
Today, we both feel we have found a better way. For some, including myself, it takes a traumatic event to wake us up to a better approach to life. For me, it was breast cancer; I’m stable now thanks to the wonderful love and care I received, but my life will literally never be the same again – thank goodness. I was finally out of my rut of people-pleasing and rudderless direction. Yes, the journey at times has been (for it is still ongoing) tricky but on the way you
discover, amongst many things, what and who is truly important. It has helped me live my life with the respect it and I deserve.
The good news is we don’t all need to wait for the proverbial bus to hit us before we make the changes necessary to make sense of our world and get on with living.
But where to start? Since those heady days on the balcony in Tokyo, Gina and I have explored and studied many diverse tools. Gina focussed on making organizations better: change management, organizational analysis and governance. I immersed myself in all things about the ‘self’: from the Silva Method to quantum jumping [yes it really is a thing]; energy healing to meditation, with a degree in psychology and training as an EFT (Tapping) practitioner thrown in for good measure. Needless to say some things worked; others not so much.
I made sense of what was happening to me through trial and error; many trials and many, many errors. Now, while this is in itself a way to learn, it is highly time intensive with no guarantee of success. However through all this research and study, Spatial Awareness has developed into a solid philosophy founded on a concrete repository of streamlined, tried-and-tested methods, alongside psychologically-informed and evidence-based knowledge that we would love to share with you, your team and your organisation. We can save you the years of sweat and tears and work with you to find your better way. Those fresh starts and new beginnings can finally mean just that – all you need to do is call.