STOP BULLYING! WEAR PINK TODAY!

What can we learn from young people? At lot it seems…especially when it comes to dealing with bullying.

For those of you who are not familiar with how the PINK ANTI-BULLYING CAMPAIGN started I’d like to tell you a story.

This story takes place in Nova Scotia, on the East Coast of Canada, at Central Kings Rural High School in the small community of Cambridge.

It is a story about activism and about standing up for those who are perhaps not able to stand up for themselves.

Those of us who are concerned about bullying in the workplace can learn a lot from what these high school students did.

It begain with a victim. A Grade 9 boy who showed up on his first day at school wearing a PINK polo shirt.

Bullies harassed the boy, calling him a homosexual and threatening to beat him up.

A Happy Ending!

Fortunately for this boy and the rest of us this story has a happy ending. Two Grade 12 students–David Shepherd and Travis Price–heard the news and decided to TAKE ACTION.

They went to a discount store and bought 50 PINK shirts to wear to school the next day.

Then they went on-line (thank God for the internet) and they emailed their classmates telling them to “get on board with their anti-bullying cause”.

They called this campaign “the sea of pink”.

What happened next is the stuff of legends. The next day hundreds of students arrived at school dressed in PINK.

The Grade 9 boy was never bullied again AND the “sea of pink” campaign has spread across North America…and perhaps around the world.

SO…on February 25th which is TODAY!

WEAR SOMETHING PINK TO SHOW THE WORLD THAT WE AS A SOCIETY WILL NOT TOLERATE BULLYING ANYWHERE!

Pink Shirt Anti-Bullying Day is held every year on the last Wednesday in February.

I challenge all of you to learn from these young people and stand up to bullying in the workplace.

We can all make a difference if we work together!

Cheers, Lesley

Harassment & Discrimination in the Workplace

Happy Saturday!

This past week I’ve been doing some training on harassment and discrimination in the workplace and reading about DIVERSITY.

Given that the workplace is a reflection of our society it is no wonder that there is so much disrespect, harassment, bullying and violence at in the workplace. Of course it doesn’t have to be this way.

The first step an organization and its leaders need to take is to understand some of the issues facing organizations today.

One of the biggest challenges facing organizations today is the DIVERSITY of the workforce.

This diversity can take many forms, for instance:

• age (think generations)
• culture
• gender
• race
• individual perspectives
• marital status
• sexual orientation
• physical and mental disabilites
• other

Having a diverse workforce can be challenging but it can also have many rewards. Life would be SO boring if we were all the same. AND organizations that understand this tend to be more successful, more productive, etc. etc.

So how do we learn to work together? I think it begins with the basic value of RESPECT.

Respect is the glue that holds us together. Respect makes it possible for us to live and work together despite our differences.

There is a continuum of behaviors beginning with respect at one end…moving to harassment…and if the harassment is because of someones color, gender, age, etc. it is considered discrimination.

As we all know discrimination is against the law. At least in the Western World.

So, how to prevent harassment and discrimination?

Start by having policies and procedures in place so that employees know what is expected of them. Then provide them with some education or training on how to use these policies.

In order to get along we need to focus on the following:

• understand our OWN values
• understand what we bring to the workplace
• understand how we communicate
• learn to share part of who we are…open up a little
• learn to communicate respectfully
• take responsibility for creating a respectful workplace

The buck stops with management!

If there are problems at work that involve harassment and discrimination the organization has the responsibility to do something to stop this behavior. This is serious business and some organizations have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for allowing harassment and discrimination to continue even after employees have complained.

This means that management has to step up to the plate.

Management/leadership is responsible for creating healthy and respectful workplace cultures.

BUT, WE ALL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN CREATING HEALTHY, RESPECTUL, WORKPLACE COMMUNITIES!

Bye for now! Enjoy your weekend!

Lesley

Myths About the Workplace

Hello again!

There are so many things that I could write about this week but I’m going to take the easy route and “borrow” some ideas from an article that was published in the Vancouver Sun on August 2, 2008. The article was written by Stephanie Whittaker who is a regular contributer to the Sun.

Here are 9 workplace myths that might surprise you:

Myth #1. To Be Productive You Have to Be Charged Up.

There must be something in this because I was told by my boss the bully that I would not (could not) make a good leader because I was not (am not?) an extrovert.

Since then I’ve read that the best leaders are actually introverts because they take the time to STOP and REFLECT on what is going on.

The same is true for productivity. According to Stephen Schettini of Mind Seminars we make more mistakes when we are “overly pumped and not able to think things through”.

Myth #2. You Have to be Friends with Your Co-workers. This is an interesting one.

Stephanie quotes Gerry Smith, VP of organizational health at Shepell-fgi. In response to the question, “Do I have to be best friends with everyone I work with?”

Mr. Smith responds,

“In fact, you don’t. Friends are people with whom we have common bonds, which make us want to spend time with them. Good friends nourish our souls. I don’t expect co-workers to do that.”

Well, although Mr. Smith has a valid point in that we DON’T have to be friends with the people we work I would have to disagree with the rest of his comment.

Most of us spend a large percentage of our lives in the workplace. I think that it would only make sense that we would work with people who share some of the same values, interests, and other things that we might have in common.

Naturally this would lead to the formation of friendships. In a couple of previous posts I wrote about the value of having a friend or friends working along with you.

Myth #3. We Have Freedom of Speech at Work. This deserves a separate post but for now I’m going to respond to Mr. Smith’s comments again. In this case Smith is right in saying that “we cannot freely express our opinions openly on topics that may be offensive to some.”

I’ll write more about respect, harassment and discrimination in a future post.

Myth #4. Employers are Paying a Lot of Money to Hire People with University Degrees.

Apparently not! Enough said.

Myth #5. You Can’t Change Things Including Glitches in Processes and Procedures in the Workplace.

Hmmm these people obviously haven’t heard about the Change Initiatives Team at Providence Health Care!

Myth #6. People Leave Jobs and Go to Other Employers for More Money.

Something I was reminded of this past week. 

RESPECT is more important than money and people will often take a lower salary to work for someone they RESPECT and who in turn treats them with respect.

Myth #7. Managers Don’t Care About the Little Guy (Gal?).

I can see where this myth comes from. In today’s organizations managers are busy and have large numbers of people reporting to them. Has employee recognition become a thing of the past?

Myth #8. You Have to Put Work Before Everything Else in Order to Succeed.

Not necessarily but if you want to advance in your career you will probably have to work REALLY hard at least when you first start out. Having said that you will also want to have a balanced life…so don’t put work before everything else. Keep work in perspective.

Myth #9. We’re More Accessible and Available Than in the Past AND We Work Longer Hours.

I think that this depends on the individual. If you take your Blackberry on vacation and check your work emails every day you will be accessible and you will also be less productive.

Enough about the workplace. It’s a SUNNY Sunday afternoon. Time to play!

Cheers,

Lesley