How safe are you?
“Safe” the condition of being protected from harm or other danger.
When I first started working in large organisations 20 years ago, the focus was on safety; whether people got physically injured at work. At the time I worked for the largest port management and stevedoring company in the world. While I worked there, every month we had a fatality at one of our ports. One month a truck driver was run over by his own truck. The next month a stevedore fell into the hull of a ship and died. The following month a wind burst pushed a quay crane over killing the crane operator. And on it went. Month after month in parts of our business around the world.
How would you feel if this was one of your family?
I often think about how drastically things have changed over the last 20 years. The physical safety of workers still remains a priority in our workplaces, but we don’t see the level of accidents and fatalities as we did 20 years ago.
It’s a good thing we have come a long way.
However, now we are seeing a focus on mental health, well-being and psychological safety in the workplace. In part because the uncertainty created by the pandemic and the lack of human connection caused by remote working. We have already started to see occupational legislation change in this area to include psychological safety, accelerated by the pandemic.
Psychological safety is one of the core parts of building an inclusive culture and so people working in diversity and inclusion need to be across this important topic area.
One of the things we do at The Culture Ministry is curate the best resources for D&I professionals to use in their work. So here are some great resources on psychological safety:
TED Talk: Building a psychologically safe workplace Amy Edmondson
HBR Article: What Psychological Safety Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace Amy C. Edmondson, Mark Mortensen
Work Life with Adam Grant Podcast: Is it safe to speak up at work?
“Supporting World Mitochondrial Week
Where are the women? Still!”
Mitochondrial disease (mito) is a debilitating and potentially fatal disease that reduces the ability of the mitochondria (in our cells) to produce energy. When the mitochondria are not working properly, cells begin to die until eventually whole organ systems fail.
We support the mito foundation here at The Culture Ministry and we would love you to as well….
In February this year I was honored to have Toni Catton, mum of Alana join me on A Dog Called Diversity. Alana passed away on 27 September 2020 from mitochondrial disease. As it’s nearly 12 months since her passing, I would like to honour her spirit by sharing this very special episode.
Each year Chief Executive Women, conducts reviews of organisations listed on the Australian stock exchange for women in senior executive roles. This year only 6% of women hold CEO roles in the top 300 companies and only 26% have women in their Executive leadership teams. Appalling results and I wonder how organisations across Asia are faring?