When we talk about inclusion, we mean that whoever the person is, whatever their background, race, religion, ethnicity and so on, their voice should always be heard and respected. They should be included and accepted for who they are, and they should always be given the right to provide their valuable input to the people around them and the organization as a whole.
Let’s discuss how our teams in the field are ensuring that every person feels included. Dareen Traboulsi is an Outage Manager with FieldCore. To her “Inclusion” means to have everyone’s voice heard. Each person has their opinion which should be respected.
When it comes to the team, Dareen’s number one priority and obligation is to always ensure that everyone returns home safely. As the next step after ensuring safety and health, it is crucial to make a person feel accepted and included. Everyone deserves to be working in the environment that has integrity and mutual respect. This has its positive effect on job satisfaction and motivates employees to keep delivering world-class results for our customers. “Everyone should understand that we are doing something very important to the company, to the communities and to ourselves. This is an accomplishment.” – says Dareen.
Making a person feel included is a task that should not be underestimated. Dareen has her own ways of bringing the team together.
“I have something special that I do, and I have been told that this is a unique approach. People have not seen anyone do this before. I usually go to everyone’s offices to introduce myself and I ask everyone in turn to introduce themselves. That is the very first thing I do, because people at site need to know who I am, and I need to know them in order to function as a single mechanism and successfully deliver our job.”
As the outage progresses, Dareen tries to learn more about every team member and understand who they are outside of their work role. Are they a parent? Do they have a pet? What are their hobbies? She establishes that connection and helps people open up. This brings the team closer.
Dareen and her team celebrate every little thing and every little success. “We used to have a celebration every week, whether it was an anniversary or a birthday, a religious event like Easter, Ramadan, Festival of Color or even Valentine’s day. We celebrated each other’s successes and milestones.” This helped the team develop camaraderie, friendship, trust, and connection with teammates from whatever diverse background they came from. The pandemic has brough its challenges as it became tougher and unsafe to gather in groups but Dareen keeps the tradition going by adhering to all Covid-related protocols.
Another tip that Dareen shared is the importance of healthy competition. By initiating fun activities and competitions on site, she ensured that even during long shifts and busy outage season the team has fun incentives which creates an informal atmosphere and bonds people together, which in turn makes them more efficient when performing their everyday tasks.
The approach is no different when it comes to the hiring process. Kartika Ayuningdyah Mudjiono is an HR Generalist with FieldCore Indonesia. She is handling employee relations and participates in the hiring process in addition to all other duties implied by her role.
During her career she has come across a few inclusion-related issues. “Most common is gender exclusion of course. Even though it is getting better, we are still living in the era where female presence at the site or in some positions is not very common. But we should not forget that there is more to Inclusion than gender. People can be excluded by many other categories. I have witnessed cases of age discrimination, when a person’s competency was questioned because of their young age. I have heard people being judged by their physical fitness, doubted whether they can perform a specific job etc.”
“I personally have a strong belief that there are no boundaries, except the competency and the capabilities of a person. If a candidate has been selected for the position that means that this person is perfectly capable of doing the given job. Instead of judging people or unconsciously excluding them, they should be first given a chance to prove what they can do.”
As a summary, when it comes to inclusion, exclusion, stereotypes, judgment and any type of discrimination at work, one main question to ask yourself and people around you is Does this person deliver their job? If the answer is YES, then it is a full stop. No more discussion, discrimination or exclusion.
Inclusion is acceptance!
