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It will not come as a surprise that I have been watching with growing disgust the revelations about the disgraceful workplace culture in our federal parliament.
Having worked in the Canberra bubble — and having been subjected to behaviour unacceptable in a modern workplace — the revelations from parliament strike me as problematic on a number of levels.
The sexism and misogyny in Australian politics is rightly being called out by an increasing number of people. Sharing those stories is a critical step on the path to change.
“It is the most unsafe workplace in the country,” former parliamentarian Julia Banks told the NYT this month, escalating our national shame to the world stage. But the cultural problems in parliament are not just a concern to the people who work there — they concern the future of the entire nation.
At Great Place to Work, we have 30 years of research from the world’s best organisations showing that the factors that create a great and safe workplace not only benefit the employees, but that they also deliver clearly better outcomes for shareholders, customers and the wider community.
Unsafe workplaces mean lower productivity, poorer ideas, and defensive and insular behaviours. They stifle innovation and reduce customer satisfaction. They lift costs and limit success.
We don’t accept this from the private sector so why should we accept it from our parliament?
Here are some of the things we know:
Psychological safety is a critical predictor of organisational success. Workplaces that nurture a culture where people can deal directly with interpersonal issues and decision-making issues are proven to be more successful. In the private sector, this manifests in higher profitability and better shareholder returns. In the public sector, psychologically safe workplaces enable better teamwork, better ideas and higher levels of innovation.
High trust cultures make for better customer outcomes. Our research shows a strong connection between a high-trust culture and operational success. This success includes customer satisfaction, which is something we should all demand of our government. At Great Place to Work, we repeatedly advise leaders who care about the well-being of their organisation to make a priority of building a high-trust culture. A high trust workplace is one where people believe their employer is competent, communicative and honest and that they are being treated with respect as people in a workplace that is fundamentally fair.
Benchmarking and measuring culture are vital. Values are not what is written on the wall or espoused by the leaders, but what the employees actually experience in their day-to-day lives. There is no way an organisation as large as parliament house can truly understand its workplace culture and make genuine lasting change without detailed analysis of its workplace culture that provides actionable insights that are tracked over time and benchmarked against the best workplaces in the world.
How many of these principles are being applied effectively in Parliament House?
Our national parliament is where we want the best people working together in the best environment to generate and execute the best ideas.
How much better would it be for Australia if we could set our own parliament on course to be a Great Place to Work For All?
Samantha Huddle is the General Manager of Great Place to Work® in Australia and NZ. Sam has more than two decades of experience from the grassroots to the C-suite and helps businesses build high-trust, inclusive cultures that deliver tangible results. With experience across the government, philanthropic and corporate sectors, Sam brings a collaborative, values-driven approach and a passion for achieving social impact through business. Sam publishes a well-read monthly newsletter which can be read **here.**
© Great Place to Work® Institute. All Rights Reserved.
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To be eligible for the World’s Best Workplaces list, a company must apply and be named to a minimum of 5 national Best Workplaces lists within our current 58 countries, have 5,000 employees or more worldwide, and at least 40% of the company’s workforce (or 5,000 employees) must be based outside of the home country. Extra points are given based on the number of countries where a company surveys employees with the Great Place to Work Trust Index©, and the percentage of a company’s workforce represented by all Great Place to Work surveys globally. Candidates for the 2017 Worlds Best Workplaces list will have appeared on national workplaces lists published in September 2016 through August 2017.
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The Best Workplaces in Asia List
Great Place to Work® identifies the top organizations that create great workplaces in the Asian and Middle Eastern regions with the publication of the annual Best Workplaces in Asia list. The list recognizes companies in three size categories:
To be considered for inclusion, companies must appear on one or more of our national lists in the region, which includes Greater China (covering China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau), India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka and UAE. For the 2021 Asia List, companies ranked on the national list in the Philippines will also be included. Multinational organizations must meet the following requirements:
Multinationals also receive additional credit for their efforts to successfully create an excellent workplace culture in multiple countries in the region. The data used in the calculation of the regional list comes from national lists published in 2019 and early 2020.
