eGDCWorking in a diverse and inclusive team
By valuing the unique experiences and identities of each team member, dental teams can enhance collaboration, reduce discrimination, and create a supportive environment that benefits both colleagues and patients.
Why is diversity and inclusion important?
Good team working is crucial for your wellbeing and the wellbeing of those you work with. If someone is being discriminated against, bullied, or victimised at work, or feels like they do not belong in their team, it becomes more difficult to work in partnership with others. As a result, providing the best possible outcomes for patients can become difficult.
It is important to value diversity in the team to help create a feeling of belonging, reduce the likelihood of discrimination or bullying, and to enable the team to deliver the best care they can to patients. When reflecting on the diversity of your team, you should consider the demographic differences that are present within a group. These include accents, native language, migration status, ages, caring responsibilities, culture, religion, disabilities, gender, sex, neurodiversity, family status, socio-economic circumstances, and many others.
You can have a diverse team, but not necessarily one that is inclusive. To achieve inclusivity in a team, everyone must be treated fairly and with respect and have access to the opportunities that align with their skills, experience, and career stage. Inclusion is necessary for people to thrive as it enables them to feel like a valued part of their team and help encourage a positive attitude towards work and the patients being cared for.
A person’s individual characteristics can influence working styles, preferences and personal or cultural boundaries. Such characteristics and differences should be respected and not discriminated against. Ensuring that everyone is included and feels included is key to ensure that the whole team, regardless of their diversities, feels respected and valued.
How can we promote inclusion and diversity?
Ana, a 26-year-old orthodontist, is pregnant and has a hidden disability. Rita, a 53-year-old orthodontist, has two children and cares for her father. Ana and Rita are women with a multitude of different characteristics and life experiences. These characteristics are part of what will define them as individuals and influence their outlook on life and their wants and needs. Recognising and understanding your colleagues’ unique experiences and individuality is an important step to tackle discrimination and foster a respectful work environment. You should use your judgment to reflect upon your colleagues’ characteristics and determine the best way to engage and work with them.
Our life experiences can affect the way we see other people and lead us to perceive reality in a way that may not be a true reflection of it. This is how bias manifests. As much as our actions may be well-intentioned, we will always have a degree of bias impacting our thinking. Take the following example:
Jaime is the practice manager of a dental clinic where there is a vacancy for a dental nurse position. Jaime assumes dental nurses will be female, associating them with nurturing and caring skills, and starts leaning towards female candidates.
As a result, Jaime rejects a well-suited male applicant at the early stages of the recruitment process and ends up hiring a female dental nurse due to gender-based assumptions. These actions limit the diversity and skillset of the team, while perpetuating the bias of the practice manager.
To avoid following a similar path to Jaime’s, you can try to become more aware of your biases. This might include getting your team’s views on the task at hand and asking yourself why you are making certain decisions.
General reflection points
Adopting an intersectional approach and tackling unconscious bias are only two examples of how to promote diversity and inclusion within a team. Here are a few reflection points to think about:
- Is the way I treat my colleagues based on their work experience and skills or on their personal characteristics?
- How do I support each colleague, as an individual, to achieve their best performance? Is there anything I could do differently?
- Is there a chance that my vocabulary may be perceived as derogatory or abusive towards a colleague, patient or anyone who has a particular protected characteristic?
- Am I stereotyping a colleague? Might using these stereotypes lead to me being discriminatory?
Do I take the diversity of my team into account when I communicate with them?
Reflection points for leaders and employers
- Am I taking my colleagues' needs into account and considering reasonable adjustments to help them thrive?
- Does my practice have an inclusion and diversity policy or code of practice in place?
- Could my work policies be discriminating against any colleagues?
- When I am making a change to the way we run the practice, do I know if it will adversely affect some of my colleagues with specific characteristics? Have I consulted them or done some research to find out?
- Do I encourage feedback from my colleagues and reflect on it, acting where necessary? Do they know this?
- Regardless of your role, it is an important part of being a professional to consider these questions and many more to help determine how you should treat your colleagues, patients, and all others around you.