"Important that everyone feels included in the workplace"

“It is very important that everyone feels welcome and included in the workplace. I hope that this will lead to a better working environment and that we do a better job in the long run,” says Marie Larsson, administrative manager of the CBH School.

The initiative comes from the school's JML group, which is led by the Head of School Mikael Lindström, also responsible for JML at CBH. The group wants to increase awareness and knowledge of values ​​and norms in the organization. Therefore, all employees in the administration have been offered training from the company Jämställt during the spring. As part of the same initiative, training in inclusive leadership is currently underway for all of CBH’s managers.

“We have done investigations into discrimination and harassment and thankfully there are not that many cases. But this initiative is about seeing things earlier. Sometimes you have heard that the atmosphere in the coffee room has not been the way you want it to be. It was good that the JML training addressed all grounds of discrimination because it is easy to think only of the relationship between men and women. This is where all parts of the JML area came in,” says Marie Larsson.

Positive response

According to Marie Larsson, the response from the staff has been positive and attendance has been good. Between 60 and 70 people participated in the three modules, which through theory, examples and exercises dealt with norms, norm criticism and an inclusive treatment, gender, equality, ruling techniques, violations, harassment and minority stress.

“It was even the case that people wrote in the chat during the training that they thought it was good. So it was a huge commitment. Many were pleasantly surprised, I think. They may have hesitated whether to go for it or not, but afterwards the reached out and said it was great!”

Eye opener

Marie Larsson believes that it is good to try to find ways to dare to raise issues that can be difficult to talk about and that the course can function as an eye opener.

“I do not think anyone goes to work intending to be uninclusive, I think you have this behavior unconsciously and you do not think about it. It should be obvious but it is not and hence you have to talk about it together to make a change,” she says.

The JML training will be evaluated and during the summer the company Jämställt will also follow up on how things have gone. The idea is to find tools to work further with the issues.

“The biggest benefit was almost that we in the business support took this course together, and got to sit in some new constellations and work together. In fact, I think it was almost the very best thing,” says Marie Larsson.

Text: Sabrina Fabrizi