Every once in a while, someone gets offended by someone else. That’s just the way life works, isn’t it?
When that kind of a mindset gets transferred to the workplace, though, things get a little bit trickier. That’s when you realize that it’s definitely not the way life works, or, at least it’s not the way it should work. We could all use to be a bit more sensitive, especially with the people we work.
Ignorance has often known to lead to certain inappropriate comments and behaviors in the workplace. What do you think should be done about it? Should you wait for certain incidents to arise seemingly out of nowhere and then deal with them? It often happens that when one person steps forward with a complaint, those complaints just keep piling up and, before you know it, you’re buried in serious issues you need to take care of in your organization.
Here’s what insensitivity in the workplace might bring about.
The ideal situation would be to never have to worry about things like these happening. Such an ideal situation might sound impossible to achieve, but experience has shown that it is actually quite possible. The only thing is, it starts from the top. You cannot expect your employees to act appropriately if the managers and the big bosses are doing nothing to set an example.
Of course, you cannot expect a miracle to happen and everything to be idyllic. There will always be certain issues, but you can definitely reduce those issues to a minimum with the help of sensitivity training. In case you still aren’t familiar with this important concept, let us quickly go through the idea behind it and then we will get to explaining why it is so significant.
Sensitivity Training
Sensitivity training is a developmental technique aimed at increasing the satisfaction of employees by raising awareness about certain individual prejudices that they might have and by helping them learn how to overcome those and become more sensitive towards their colleagues. It’s usually best to start from the top, i.e. it’s best for the people holding higher positions in an organization engage in these trainings first in order to then set an example for the others. Click this to learn more about sensitivity training in general.
Managers are usually the ones who need to set the above mentioned examples. If you have ever seen The Office, then I’d like you to imagine just how it would exactly feel to have Michael Scott as your manager in real life. While this might be one of the greatest shows of all times, I bet that nobody would be oblivious to the manager’s insensitivity in that workplace. Would you want someone like that to be an example to the rest of your employees about how they should all behave? I assume I know the answer to that question.
Let us not get off topic, though. Sensitivity trainings are the perfect way to teach your managers how to behave and how to be understanding and considerate in the workplace. Their behavior should never be taken for granted just because they are experts at what they do. Managers in particular need to have excellent people skills. Let us now see why organizing this training is important for your organization.
It Raises Cultural and Diversity Awareness
Whether you like to hear it or not, some of your managers are bound to be biased and prejudiced. They might not even be aware of it, but they have probably fallen into certain cultural stereotypes. That leads to them inadvertently offending other people. Inadvertently or not, it can lead to a lot of problems within your organization.
That’s exactly why you need to take sensitivity training for managers seriously, because it is a powerful concept designed to raise your managers’ cultural awareness and prevent them from making mistakes in their communication with your employees. That will let your employees know that you care for their well-being. Everybody wants to work in an organization like that and, more importantly, everybody wants to give their best to an organization like that.
It Solves Communication Issues
I have touched upon the topic of communication above. Communication issues are among those things that can cause a lot of troubles to an organization. People are often unable to convey the messages they are trying to transfer and that can significantly and negatively affect the interpersonal skills within the organization.
By engaging in sensitivity trainings, your managers will learn how to communicate effectively and they will surely be able to transfer some of those communicational skills to the rest of your employees. Furthermore, this will help them in the process of conflict resolution. No conflict can be resolved without excellent communication skills.
It Changes Unwanted Behavior
Certain types of behaviors can harm not only the harmony within an organization, but also its relationships with vendors, clients and customers. Discrimination and harassment are only some of the unwanted behaviors that can emerge from the lack of sensitivity towards other people. I suppose I don’t even need to explain how harmful any type of discrimination and harassment is in any workplace. In case you notice it going on in your workplace, you’ll probably do everything you can in order to stop it.
One of the things that you can do is go through with the sensitivity training for managers. Any unwanted behavior will be thoroughly explained and the managers will learn how to deal with those in order to nip them in the bud. It’s important to notice those types of behaviors in the early stages, so that they don’t turn into something much more serious and much more problematic.
It Shows Support
When the people who work for you notice that you are making an effort towards raising diversity and cultural awareness, they will feel protected and supported in the environment. Supporting your employees this way will let them know that you care for them. Every good organization needs to be invested in the well-being of the people they hire.
