A workshop with BAME hospital staff in November 2022 explored racism in the workplace and how a Relational Wellbeing approach could be a springboard to positive outcomes.
“I feel that the NHS Trust cares about me as a whole person of BAME background, not just as a member of staff.”
This was how BAME staff at an NHS hospital defined what BAME staff wellbeing would mean for them…. But it was very far from the way they felt things were.
Workplace wellbeing initiatives generally reflect a concern with low wellbeing. They usually advise staff how to make themselves feel better through changing individual attitudes or behaviour.
At the Relational Wellbeing Collaborative, we aim, instead, to explore what is affecting wellbeing within the workplace itself. This can lead to some painful conversations. The power of the process is not to stay with the negatives, however, but to ‘flip’ them into a springboard to imagine a different, desirable situation where staff wellbeing is safeguarded and advanced.
This is a positive and empowering experience within the workshop itself. It can also lead to a sustainable step-change in collective workplace wellbeing, if the insights lead to action at management level.
Considering how to improve BAME wellbeing, participants in the NHS workshop agreed that formal equality of opportunity exists already. What really matters, and what is lacking, is equality of outcome.
The statements they put forward as indicators for assessment reflect this: ‘I can expect to have the same career progression as my UK origin White colleagues in the NHS Trust’, ‘I can expect to have the same financial security as my UK origin White colleagues in the NHS Trust.’
But it isn’t only material outcomes that matter, there are also relational dimensions to consider, as racism is expressed through everyday interactions which conduct currents of inclusion and exclusion.
The following statements identify some relational outcomes: ‘My work receives the same level of recognition as that of UK origin White colleagues,’ and ‘My identity is recognised and valued equally with that of White colleagues.’
A further statement summed up the subjective dimension of wellbeing: ‘I feel safe, heard and respected at work as a BAME staff member.’
Having defined wellbeing, and agreed some indicators to assess its different dimensions, we then went on to diagnosis: What are the critical factors, or drivers, causing low levels of BAME staff wellbeing? We began by looking within at ‘personal drivers’, as people talked of their exhaustion and sense of psychological damage caused by lifelong experience of racism in the Trust and the UK more widely.
Fear came up a lot, especially in relation to raising BAME issues. We then talked about institutional drivers within the Trust. Important amongst these were lack of transparency and accountability in recruitment and promotion, and complaints, grievance and disciplinary processes.
Three outcomes of the workshop are particularly striking.
- The importance to wellbeing of an affirmative approach to BAME identities, beyond a policy of simple non-discrimination.
- What is sought is equality of outcomes not simply equality of opportunities.
- There are close inter-relations between institutional drivers and personal drivers of wellbeing. This suggests that everyday racism not only threatens BAME staff wellbeing in the present, but it also erodes their capacity to sustain their wellbeing over the longer term.
The workshop was run by Sarah White and Shreya Jha, of the Relational Wellbeing Collaborative.
To talk to us, or for more information, please contact us.