Training and Awareness

FRS have the responsibility to provide training to all existing and new employees. This training helps them understand their rights and responsibilities, as well as what they can do to help create a working environment free of bullying and harassment.

In addition, FRS should provide additional training to leaders to enable them to deal effectively with complaints of bullying, harassment, victimisation and discrimination.

Ensure training is repeated regularly and keep records of attendees for monitoring purposes. FRS should ensure that any training provision is regularly reviewed so that the content is current and aligned with up-to-date best practice and legislation.

Training topics may cover, but are not limited to:

Awareness of bullying and all other types of harassment
Inclusion best practice (such as addressing unconscious bias and diversity in practice)
Discrimination, the Equality Act and protected characteristics
Data security and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Recruitment and selection
Safeguarding Level 1 / categories of abuse
Conflict resolution
Handling grievances and whistleblowing

Strategies

for raising awareness and promoting a culture of openness and inclusivity

Inclusion is developed by embedding inclusive practices and values into the FRS way of doing things. The FRS should support employees, line managers and senior leaders to:

Build inclusive behaviours and values
Ensure policies and practices are inclusive
Challenge organisational values and behaviours that do not promote these principles

The principles in the Core Code of Ethics should be evident and incorporated into all FRS activity. Consider the following:

Involve all employees in inclusion

All employees need to understand their role in being inclusive at work. This involves FRS:

Setting standards of behaviour
Treating everyone with dignity and respect
Empowering employees to challenge inappropriate behaviour

FRS should ensure that they make inclusion relevant to all employees by asking them:

What does inclusion mean in their job role?
What can they do to be more inclusive?

Develop people-management capabilities

Leaders have a key role to play in inclusion. The relationship they have with employees, and how they carry out people-management practices and policies, will affect the opportunities of employees and their experiences of work.

Effective leaders treat all employees with respect, support their development and ensure they have a say in the workplace. They also ensure a level playing field for their team and support the needs of individual employees.

FRS need to embed inclusion in line-manager training and development. This may include raising awareness of issues related to inclusion and empowering managers to carry out people-management practices effectively.

Build senior-leader commitment to inclusion

Many senior leaders are line managers themselves and set the tone for expected behaviour in the FRS. To increase diversity in senior leadership teams, FRS should also pay attention to the inclusivity of the boardroom. FRS need to highlight the importance of senior-leader advocacy and buy-in.

Senior leaders need to actively champion and sponsor inclusion activities, develop self-awareness and understand their own biases. They should also role-model inclusive behaviour in their management of people and in their own leadership team.

Evaluate policies and practices

Follow this two-step approach to developing people-management practices and policies that support inclusion:

Consider the formal and informal mechanisms that can be improved to enhance inclusion for all employees (for example, ensure there are clear mechanisms for feedback that allow employees to feel like they have a say in the FRS, such as 360° feedback mechanisms)
Consider how you can embed inclusion into wider people-management practices and communicate the policies that support inclusion

Source: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)