Fairness and Integrity

What is fairness and integrity?

Fairness and integrity is honest, transparent and consistent leadership, promoting fairness and equity in decision-making, and understanding of personal limitations and biases.

Why is fairness and integrity important?

Effectively training people leaders in fairness and integrity will:

  • Grow workers’ trust in leadership.
  • Reduce and eliminate discrimination.
  • Proactively address worker issues.
  • Encourage workers to want to do their best work.
  • Enhance the likelihood teams are high-functioning.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Assess stressors related to psychological, emotional, cognitive and physical demands at work, and make necessary changes to support their success.
  • Work with employees, as equals, to develop and implement strategies that address workplace conduct. Identify employees’ needs and provide the necessary supports.
  • Ensure workers know the workplace is committed to supporting their success through an ongoing collaboration.
  • Set up regular, and ideally at least weekly, one on-one check-ins to review priorities and progress and troubleshoot challenges.
  • Develop and publicly share policies around appropriate workplace behaviour as required by law (see Part XXII.I of the General Regulation 91-191). Clarify the actions and behaviours that workers will be held accountable for in a Code of Practice, and their consequences.
  • Identify organizational and personal barriers to taking effective action.
  • When discussing inappropriate behaviour with a worker, inform the worker in advance you wish to talk about something important. Schedule a private one-on-one meeting with enough time to talk without feeling rushed. Don’t schedule it too far in advance to avoid unnecessary stress.
  • When addressing an incident, focus on the specific behaviour and actions, not the person. Be clear, specific and objective in describing the behaviour and avoid making assumptions or laying blame, as this can lead to defensiveness. Be clear in terms of expectations and next steps.
  • Review the emotional and interpersonal requirements of each job. Ensure these are included in job ads.
  • Involve potential coworkers and those currently in similar roles (as appropriate) in the selection process for new applicants. This allows an opportunity for applicants to ask questions about the role and increases clarity around the position requirement.
  • Provide mentorship, coaching and training in interpersonal/emotional skills, particularly those needed for highly demanding positions.
  • Develop a culture where emotional intelligence is understood, valued and used as a criterion for recruitment, selection, recognition/reward and promotion.
  • Where appropriate, consider a process that allows workers to explore internal positions that may better match their interpersonal and emotional competencies (such as job-shadowing or career-development discussions).

Action

Next steps: Commit to enhance fairness and integrity as a leader

We invite you to complete the Psychologically Safe Leader Assessment (PSLA) to learn more about your current leadership skills with respect to fairness and integrity. By completing this confidential self-assessment, you can identify key areas where you can improve your psychologically safe leadership skills.

▸ For fairness and integrity, there are many ways that you can improve and expand your skills, including:
  • Enhance your personal resilience and emotional intelligence skills.
  • Adapt your communication style to workers’ unique learning styles.
  • Conduct productivity reviews with direct report(s). Determine areas where they need supports.
  • When broader organizational changes or decisions are coming, seek clarity about information you can share and when you can share it.
  • Share with higher-ups in the organization concerns being expressed by your workers (maintain appropriate privacy and confidentiality). Ask for help to manage concerns.
  • Create a framework to eliminate stigma.
  • Have regular team discussions to generate ideas about how to support and enhance worker engagement.
  • Recognize and reward workers to ensure they feel appreciated for their efforts. Help workers identify workplace issues and challenges they face and support them in developing coping strategies.
  • Ask your team what civility and respect means in your workplace and ways it can be improved (both with coworkers, as well as customers and clients).
  • Help raise awareness of the impacts of worker behaviour on others, especially when those behaviours are uncivil or disrespectful.
  • Develop effective processes to resolve challenges and conflicts that arise, especially between workers.
  • Be clear about what behaviours and actions workers will be held accountable for and the consequences.
  • Identify any barriers that exist to taking effective and timely action.
  • Seek worker opinions, input and suggestions regularly.
  • Help workers manage organizational change.