tEQuitable
Challenge
When anyone experiences or witnesses an uncomfortable situation at work, they may not feel confident in highlighting their concerns through formal channels for fear of unwanted escalation. As a result of an Albourne Employee Engagement Survey in 2020 and focus groups in 1Q 2021, we saw a desire from colleagues to be able to discuss workplace-related issues and to access resources to help them develop awareness, skills and strategies designed to prevent and resolve difficult workplace situations.
Without this additional support, an individual can be left feeling isolated and unsure how to proceed, and the company may be unaware that an issue exists, making it difficult to take action and/or make meaningful change. We wish to empower our colleagues to raise concerns and feel genuinely supported so that we, as an organization, can advance as a psychologically safe and truly equitable environment.
Actions
Albourne is proud to have partnered with tEQuitable and made their platform available to all employees on 1 September 2021.
tEQuitable is an online organizational Ombuds – an independent, confidential, and impartial resource for employees to learn how to be a better ally, how to recognize microaggressions and, importantly, explore actionable options to resolve workplace issues.
tEQuitable is an independent channel offered completely separate from and unrelated to Albourne’s existing formal complaint and grievances policy within HR. It allows employees to have private discussions with a trained independent ombuds, receive guidance and options, and acquire new skills on a wide range of learning topics. Albourne will receive quarterly aggregated information on issues and concerns. With this information Albourne is better positioned to be able to understand how our workplace culture is experienced by all employees and ensure policies and expectations for workplace behavior consistently align with our values.
Outcomes
tEQuitable demonstrated the system on 1 September 2021 to the whole company; employee feedback on Albourne taking this action was very positive. Further, Albourne will be promoting tEQuitable learning content company-wide every 4-6 weeks.
It is still very early days, however, in the first month, over 25% of employees have engaged with the platform, with the most popular modules and key word searches being focused on:
- Active bystanders
- Allyship
- How to have difficult conversations
- Microagressions
- Taking time to de-stress
Quote
In response to our colleagues’ employee engagement survey feedback, we mapped out what we needed from a platform to address their DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) priorities. We could not have been more thrilled to learn of tEQuitable’s existence, values and capabilities. We are excited to benefit from their experience, as we continue on our DEIB journey.