What a safe working environment actually means
At FUNCORP, we are contributing much to creating a safe and caring working environment.
It's not only about team building, serving food in the office, and other fancy things a social package company provides. It's also about nurturing an atmosphere of open communication, process transparency, feedback culture, and trust between co-workers.
It could achieve this by providing equal opportunities to everyone, maintaining a diverse and inclusive workspace with zero tolerance to cases of misconduct, harassment, and inappropriate behavior.
One of the steps towards this is to regularly educate employees on the wrong behavior and its possible consequences. This is what we did recently by holding a training session on harassment to our colleagues. We talked about what types of harassment exist and how to identify and prevent them as there are some non-obvious expressions to bear in mind and avoid. These pieces of training are also an excellent occasion to remind that whenever anyone observes or suffers from harassment, it should be voiced up and reported to the senior management or company's hotline.
Usually, the word 'harassment' is collocated with 'sexual,' although there are many more ways to harm someone without physical abuse. Harassment can also be psychological. Offensive behavior, bullying, insults, discrimination of any kind, personal animosity, and unhealthy competition from peers or senior managers create a hostile working environment.
Such things are inappropriate for us and contradict our corporate culture.
But talking about the problem is not enough if the processes in the company are complex and unclear. To avoid unconscious bias, we have a transparent performance review that includes the employee's track record and self-assessment and the manager's evaluation and 360 feedback from peers and final calibration to zero the number of assessment mistakes. Moreover, all the business decisions are based on a data-driven approach or A/B test results, leaving no space for someone's animosity to burden an employee's promotion. Everyone gets what they deserve according to professional competencies and skills.
Big things come from small beginnings. To maintain a safe environment, every employee should be conscious about what they say, what they do, and how their behavior towards their colleagues is. Development is a journey, and we are glad to support our employees along this way by offering them free-of-charge psychology service. This helps to support their mental health and provides a secure space to discuss whatever one is concerned about - whether in conflict situations at work or personal worries. A psychologist can also become a first-point contact if someone faces misbehavior and doesn't know what to do and how to act.
And last but not least, regular employees' feedback also helps keep a pulse on what's happening in the organization, highlight the weak points, and deal with any misconduct cases.
