Youth Crime Commissioner, Paris
Brown, found her online social media comments caught up with her in the
workplace (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/09/paris-brown-stands-down-twitter)
These ill-considered derogatory remarks
are all part of our attempt to establish a Social Identity[1]
by identifying with a group. This gives people an important source of pride and self-esteem,
a sense of belonging to the social world.
If we kept these opinions to ourselves
they would not be so risky, but humans are by nature ‘leaky’ – texting,
tweeting and talking with friends and colleagues in an emotionally charged,
ill-considered way.
We have come
across these situations time and time again when People Resolutions mediators are called in to restore working
relationships, or investigators assigned to determine what
happened and whether it is a disciplinary matter or not.
Here are some tips to manage chance
remarks at the workplace at source:
1) Encourage people to think before they
speak, tweet, text of email.
2) Demonstrate respect at senior level –
it’s easy to trash or ridicule someone, much harder to give colleagues that you
disagree with constructive, non-blaming feedback.
3) Utilise mediation if all parties are
willing as it can quickly create conversation about communication styles, stop
the behavior and restore rapport.
4) Use ‘virtual mentors’ – a prison I
worked in stemmed derogatory banter by inviting officers to create a virtual
mentor panel of people who would cause them to check their language if they
were in the room e.g. younger sister, grandfather, imam, priest, sport coach.
They were encouraged to visualize their virtual mentor if in an emotive
conversation.
5) Remind people that their remarks /
tweets / texts and emails are traceable and subject to the codes of conduct of
the workplace, not just their own personal moral code.
John Crawley
