The importance of inclusive working environments

The benefits of an inclusive workplace are endless; from reduced turnover rates to improved customer satisfaction, but most importantly, improved employee engagement, innovative thinking and potential improvement in wellbeing and positive mental health.

Inclusive workplaces encourage and empower colleagues to bring their full selves to work and when diversity is embraced, it creates positive working environments. Whilst many companies now have inclusion agendas or Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) policies, I believe we all have a role to play in making our workplaces inclusive. No matter where you are in your career, just starting out, leading a team or managing a business, we’re all leaders. Leadership doesn’t just have to be those who manage organisations or provide strategic direction, we can all be leaders in how we set examples for those around us. We can do all these things regardless of experience or seniority and our panel at the APM WIPM Conference seeks to give you some practical tools on how to do just that!

How can we create inclusive project environments?

1. Take time to get to know your team and the people you will be working with: take time to understand how they think, what ideas or concerns they might have, what are their hobbies and how do they spend their time outside of work. By taking time to understand the people we work with, we can alter how we manage a project to ensure everyone is included and guarantee that there are no activities which exclude people and this will also help to start to build relationships with those in our teams. For example, if you know a colleague who does the school run every morning, ensure the team meeting is after this so they can have time to come back and engage with rest of the team. Or alternatively, get to know a member of your team who is more introverted and give them time in team meetings or group environments to voice their thoughts or opinions.

2. Reflect internally: evaluate how you might come across to your team or understanding how you best communicate with colleagues. Do you communicate in a way that is abrupt or harsh, do you make time for your team or are you always busy and don’t have time to sit down and talk, do you communicate in a different way to different colleagues to meet their differing needs? It can be helpful to reflect on how we interact with our team and ask for feedback. For example, do you call colleagues out of the blue with several requests? Take time to ask your team if this method of communication works for them or is there another communication method they would prefer?

3. Ask open questions and seek to listen: by asking open questions we can encourage colleagues to discuss their thoughts and opinions more freely, instead of being led down a specific path. This can be particularly useful for getting to know colleagues, but also when you want to hear someone’s thoughts on a topic. Instead of asking, do you think this part of the project is a good idea, ask, what do you think about this part of the project? To do this, you also need to spend time listening to your colleagues, take an interest in what they are sharing and be present in the conversation. By asking open (and non-leading questions), you can start to create a more open working environment, whereby people feel they will be listened to and in turn, this will generate an inclusive culture where individuals can voice opinions or concerns freely knowing they will be heard.

This is a topic that’s important and close to my heart. I’m passionate about creating more inclusive workplaces as there is so much benefit in individuals feeling comfortable in themselves at work. As project managers we also have a role to ensure our projects, those working in our teams and the people we meet, feel included and the project fosters an inclusive culture. Working across so many different stakeholders, we have a great opportunity to lead the way on creating inclusive working environments and setting examples for those around us.

If you would like to hear more on how to create an inclusive team, attend the Women in Project Management Conference where Sarah will be speaking.