With the Queen City Pride Festival just around the corner, it’s a perfect time to highlight the importance of safer spaces for businesses and communities. You may ask, what is a safer space and what is the importance? You’re in the right place.👇
What Are Safer Spaces?
Safer spaces are defined as “a place intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations”. This allows every member of the community or workplace to feel included and welcomed without judgment, no matter their race, sexual orientation, or gender. This is important to remain a safe and supportive area for all members to be who they are and feel accepted.
There are endless ways to ensure your workplace is a safe space. Forbes provided simple, yet achievable tips to promote a safer space workplace.
Promote Dialogue
Start a conversation with other staff members to get to know them and show that they are valued.
Build Trust
Communicate what’s on your mind in an honest and respectful manner while help staff members build skills on creating and maintaining trust.
Provide A Safe Place To Talk
Find a way for staff members to communicate about issues that may affect their work performance.
Back To Basics
Take the time to show respect and empathy towards those in the workplace.
Promote Diversity and Inclusion Programs
Look for programs that suit your workplace to help every staff member feel included and have their voice heard.
PROMOTING DIVERSITY
Various programs are available worldwide to help provide a safer space for workplaces that promote diversity and inclusion. Safer Spaces is an Ontario-based organization that offers workplace training for management on how to provide a safe workplace for 2SLGBTQ+ people. Safer Spaces is currently offering online training programs that are approximately five hours long and cover topics such as why inclusion matters, concepts, language, pronouns, organizational barriers, and more.
If you are unsure how inclusive your workplace is, Safer Spaces offers a free two-minute quiz to find out!
The Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) also offers free toolkits and workshops that offer training, tips, and ways for workplaces to enhance diversity and inclusion through safer spaces. These toolkits provide every staff member no matter their race, sexual orientation, or gender the ability to feel safe, welcomed, and supported by their workplace and staff members.
Regina Resources
Regina has numerous resources, businesses, and community programs to support diversity and inclusion. The following are only a few resources that are available in the Regina area:
Create An Action Plan & Execution
By creating an action plan you can outline important dates-how long is your campaign going to be?
Provide yourself with a visual representation of how the campaign is going to roll out, including pre-planning, producing content, scheduling posts or airdates, and ongoing monitoring. Once you’ve determined your timeline of events, it’s time to execute them. This includes buying radio time, Google Ads, having content go live, engaging with consumers, and reviewing.