Q&A: Brittany Farrant-Smith

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Do you feel that you can speak up against discrimination and do you feel that others in your work place would speak up if they were witness to discrimination?

In my current workplace – 100%. SLT are very approachable – as are my managers and HR. I think it really depends on the workplace culture.

When it comes to speaking up – I think it comes down to the whole bystander equation. If it is one person or two people witnessing something happening, we are more likely to take action – as the number of people witnessing becomes more, we become less inclined to take action because we think 'somebody else will do something' and then nothing happens. I think, when it comes down to discrimination, it also depends on the person witnessing it, whether or not they will speak up or not.

I think if you have experienced discrimination yourself, if you are an empath, you know the person or you have a higher emotional intelligence and can feel what the receiver is feeling based on what the 'perpetrator' has said, you are more likely to speak up. I feel like somebody who is more privileged – or hasn’t experienced a form of discrimination, are more likely to overlook it and not think anything of it. I think this will particularly be the case in the workplace with a shi*ty work culture, where this sort of thing happens all the time. It is really a case-by-case sort of thing.

How do we maintain informal networks when working from home becomes more prevalent?

I think it just takes more motivation and effort to keep up engagement. Because technology is so widely available and advanced these days, I don’t think there are many limitations to maintaining networks – I think the biggest barrier is the self and having to exert more effort to maintain our networks.

It is about keeping up the conversations – asking your networks to chat, and saying yes when others ask. It is about running industry events and conferences virtually.

Instigate informal interactions i.e. Skype/zoom/teams coffee catch ups or events (e.g. quiz, bingo night, Friday night drinks).

The way that I see it is that, you can do all the same things you would do in a normal circumstance, virtually. No, you don’t have that same face-to-face contact but you can still have a casual beer or coffee catch up. You can still host online events etc. It is just about being proactive.

What was your biggest surprise when you started working in the public service?

Two things – from a more pessimistic stand point I would say we make things far more difficult than we need to. The amount of times that I would sit in a meeting thinking “is this really something we have to discuss for the next 30 minutes?” Or we would have to make some form of framework for something basic, for it to just be put away in the abyss and never looked at and referenced again.

If I was to take a more positive outlook, I would say how much goes on behind the scenes.

As the public, we only see the delivery side of things – i.e. the report, the policy change or regulation, more funding, less funding – output and outcomes, not the input and activities that occur to get to that point. So many people play a role to make something work, there are so many steps and working pieces, you simply don’t realise how much effort, time and energy goes into something until you are backstage, watching everyone working frantically to various timelines.

I agree that we need to be authentic and vulnerable in the workplace. However, many people in the workforce disagree – what can we do to challenge these ideas?

Monkey see, monkey do. A lot of human behaviour is driven by social norms and what other people are doing. If our leadership are exercising vulnerability, this enables and encourages others to do the same.

It is about leaders acknowledging their own feelings and practising the sharing of them – not oversharing and putting a burden on other people but showing that actually you are human and you go through the same everyday stressors as everyone else.

It’s also about leaders being trained up so that if someone comes to them, or expresses something touchy or shows vulnerability, that they are showing respect, acknowledge that this person is being trusting with them, and responding in a way that makes the person feel heard and supported.

People are more likely to speak up if someone shows a genuine interest in what they have to say and if the questions are asked to spark a deeper conversation and connection.

It’s all very well asking how somebody is but the response you are going to get nine times out of ten, is 'good thanks, yourself?' – it’s about finding other ways to check in and prompting beyond these vague, surface level conversations.

Unfortunately, emotional intelligence isn’t something that comes natural to everyone but there are training courses (which in my mind, all managers or SLT should be trained up in!)

One of the best ways to encourage people in the workplace to be more authentic and vulnerable is to actually make changes based on what you are hearing from the few people who aren’t afraid (prior to any changes or interventions) to speak up.

It’s a big change – it involves a cultural shift and it is not something that will just come about overnight. There are many mistakes that people make when trying to be vulnerable including

Getting defensive
Taking feedback as criticism
Not knowing how to deal with uncomfortable moments

This is why training is important – but I think to challenge any resistance, it is also about gradual steps. I don’t think you are going to create an authentic workplace over night – and there will be people more resistant to change than others – this is life. But I think it is about taking small steps and starting the conversation.

Every manager should be encouraging openness from a team level, creating a psychologically safe space for team members to open up and feel able to safely share ideas. From here (with time) it expands, to the wider group, business unit and eventually the corporation itself.

I think what is also important is having wellbeing reps, who, at inductions, meet with newbies and let them know that if they have any issues, burnout, stress, risks or other, that this is your go to person because some people will be more reserved and never want to open up fully to those around them, whereas it can feel much safer on a one-to-one basis.

Something that I have suggested at our team meetings – which has seemed to make our meetings less operational orientated and more person orientated, is adding questions to your meeting agenda. For example: “what has been a highlight and lowlight from your week?” This doesn’t necessarily have to be work-orientated. It sits in the persons ballpark on what they want to share, and it promotes this idea of being able to speak up and share things happening in your day-to-day life.