Team Plan for a Respectful Workplace

A unit in a government department believed it needed more work in developing a respectful workplace. There was a strong desire at all levels to create an environment where everyone felt included and enthusiastic about working within the organization.

Ingredients of success in team performance included: consistent communication; attachment to mission / benefits; and management of increasing workloads.

Through a dialogue-based, appreciative enquiry facilitation the team found that an improved personal and organizational climate of respect could be achieved.

This required the following strategies:

• Increased Personal Awareness and Understanding: Learned about some key concepts and best practices in the Respectful Workplace
• Building Together: Developed statements of aspirational and positive behaviours for the organization. To balance the discussion and acknowledge the realities of work environments, this also included developing statements on how to effectively deal with negative or disrespectful behaviours when they occur.
• Showing Commitment to Change: Developed Action Items to integrate and sustain respectful workplace behaviours in the organization.