Latest news with #workplaceCulture
Daily Mail
10-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Top CEO suddenly LEAVES World Vision after probe into bullying claims
The boss of Australia's biggest charity will part ways with the company after a string of allegations, including bullying, were levelled against him. World Vision Australia told staff on Wednesday it would not be extending the contract of its embattled chief executive, Daniel Wordsworth. It comes after Mr Wordsworth was confirmed as the subject of a number of alleged bullying complaints that were independently investigated by the charity. A source from World Vision Australia told Daily Mail Australia that investigations had been ongoing for about 18 months. They said none of the complaints were deemed necessary to be taken further, except for one that remained under investigation. According to the Fair Work Commission's website, Mr Wordsworth has initiated an adverse action claim against the charity which is listed for a conference on Monday. Former employees have described the charity as having a 'toxic' workplace culture plagued by bullying and a lack of protections for staff. One ex-employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the ABC that a number of their colleagues were 'bullied out of the building', including themselves. 'Managers either couldn't or wouldn't protect their staff,' they said. Mike Bruce, who served as World Vision's media manager from November 2019 to July 2022, said the company's culture did not align with its charitable goals. 'I reluctantly left WV over what I felt to be a culture of toxic and autocratic management that was at odds with a faith-based charity like World Vision,' he said. It is understood the charity has recently undergone a restructure, including several redundancies, and that all staff were given the opportunity to participate in the investigative process. A World Vision spokesperson confirmed Mr Wordsworth's contract had not been extended by the board, which would now 'seek fresh leadership'. 'As CEO, Daniel steered the organisation through the Covid-19 pandemic and the response to humanitarian crises and conflicts such as the ongoing war in Ukraine,' they said. 'The Board will shortly commence the search for Daniel's replacement.' Mr Wordsworth was still listed as chief executive on the World Vision website at the time of publishing. Born in Tamworth, in northeastern New South Wales, Mr Wordsworth began his career in the Royal Australian Navy. He landed the top job in 2021 after 25 years of working in conflict hotspots across South East Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He said he felt 'compelled and called' to work with World Vision when he was announced as the charity's chief executive. Prior to joining World Vision, he served as the chief executive for US-based charity Alight and led emergency response for the Christian Children's Fund. In December, he told Sky News Australia he had decided to commit his life to charity work after deciding he wanted to live a 'worthy life' at the age of 20. 'What will I think was a worthy life? At the time, I thought helping poor people and helping people who are struggling would be a worthy life,' he said. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Wordsworth for comment.
CTV News
07-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Review of workplace culture at Regina hospitals complete, after allegations of ‘racism and ‘discriminatory leadership'
An external review of the workplace culture at Regina-area hospitals is now complete. The review followed allegations of racism, misconduct, and a lack of professionalism at Regina's General Hospital (RGH). The province says the review was conducted by 'two highly respected medical leaders' from Ontario and Nova Scotia and includes 14 recommendations for the Ministry of Health, Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA) and the University of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine. To make the improvements the province says the SHA and SMA will be holding engagement sessions with Regina hospital physicians before finalizing an action plan. Complaints over the work environment at RGH first came to light in November 2023 – when several doctors, who received their education and training in Africa and Asia, filed a complaint with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission – claiming white physicians were being given preferential treatment. The province says it is also taking immediate actions to address some of the 14 recommendations from the review. That includes restructuring the SHA's Senior Physician Leadership structure that was announced on June 12, working collaboratively with the SMA to finalize practitioner staff bylaws and launching the SHA's anti-racism strategy. Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said in the release that he has faith that the review's recommendations will benefit both doctors and patients. That sentiment was echoed by both SHA CEO Andrew Will and SMA President Dr. Pamela Arnold. 'This review provides an opportunity to reset and build stronger relationships throughout the health system in Regina,' Arnold said. 'It will be critical to involve and engage physicians early and often to help build the trust necessary to do this very important work,' Arnold said. The province says longer-term implementation of actions to address the 14 recommendations will be rolled out over the next six to 12 months. The full review can be read here. -More details to come… -With files from David Prisciak and Wayne Mantyka
The Guardian
07-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘Staff need a place they trust': how to instil a workplace culture in a fast-changing world
A workplace culture isn't just about an organisation's stated values – it's also about the processes that make those values tangible. In other words, how stuff gets done. Before today's era of hybrid and flexible working, employees tended to absorb their workplace culture almost by osmosis. 'You'd be living and breathing it five days a week,' says Nish Chowdhury of the marketing agency Oliver. As the agency's global director of people systems and operations, Chowdhury has had to grapple with the dramatic upheaval in working practices of recent years. While the shift started with the global work-from-home experiment that many companies underwent during the Covid pandemic, it has continued apace. 'Covid really put a spanner in the works in terms of how we see company culture,' says Chowdhury. A workplace culture is now harder to absorb, especially for new hires. And it isn't just about people's physical presence: the pace of business and technological change has also accelerated. The constant upheaval makes it that much harder to instil a corporate culture. Employees might find themselves suffering from 'change fatigue' or feel overwhelmed by technology and the numerous apps, platforms and information sources they now have to work with. For some businesses, the questions of culture and change management have grown increasingly intertwined. On top of this, the geopolitical environment is a lot less stable than it used to be, which has fed through into the economy. In such a fluid business environment, company culture is more important than ever. It binds employees together, ensures shared values and goals, and keeps everyone engaged and motivated. So how do you instil a workplace culture in today's fast-changing world – and make it easier for a distributed workforce to acquire? In broad terms, managers now need to make their workplace culture more obvious and intentional. For instance, they can try to articulate the culture more explicitly. This doesn't necessarily have to entail formally codifying every aspect of your workplace culture – there are human ways to do it, such as demonstrating the culture and building processes around it, or publicly recognising employees and actions that best embody it. Managers can also try to express their workplace culture more frequently, and make it more ubiquitous. Technology can help here. Chowdhury highlights how her agency adopted a new HR system that can be configured to reinforce the company's culture. 'We have customised our [HR portal] homepage so employees are exposed to our culture wherever they're logging on from,' she says. 'It might be adding our values or mantras, having hosted videos or branded experiences.' The idea, she explains, is that no matter where you are, you feel connected to the company. 'People are on their phones a lot and so you give them mobile access to the business.' The system used by her agency is Sage People, an HR solution. Steve Watmore, HR and payroll product manager at software company Sage, says these features and personalised experiences can be particularly crucial when companies are onboarding new starters, as it isn't always possible to physically get new hires in for face-to-face time. 'The question becomes: 'How do you create that culture of welcoming people in and starting the kind of conversations that bring teams together?'' he says. However, it's not just about having the right technology: you also need to make it easy to use. One way of doing this is by providing staff with a one-stop shop – a single point of contact – instead of having numerous apps and platforms that result in a very fragmented experience. Lampros Sekliziotis, a product leader at Sage, says having a single self-service portal for employees is key. 'Everything feels easy and smooth. You log on to your phone and you're immersed in the company.' Technology solutions such as Sage People can also help companies improve their workplace culture by breaking down barriers to connecting – for instance, making it easier to synchronise meetings and schedule in-office days. Sekliziotis says that for remote workers you can also emulate some of the feel of a physical workspace. 'You have interactions that would normally happen in the office – so you make them happen in the flow of work.' All this helps to make people feel more part of the business – and it helps the business run as a more cohesive whole. Moreover, the portals can be personalised and tailored to the needs of individual teams, geographies and so on. There are many other benefits. In a world where fake news is rife and can damage company culture and morale, having a single reliable portal that staff can go to for facts is increasingly important. 'You want staff to have a place they trust that they can go to if they need information,' says Chowdhury. However, workplace culture isn't just something that comes from the top down. It's always been a two-way process that is also shaped by employees. This has become increasingly true with social media and digital communication. Traditionally, employees had a chance to give their own views and feedback with annual satisfaction surveys. But once a year is far from ideal in today's world. Tools such as employee pulse surveys – short, quick surveys that are sent to employees on a regular basis – are becoming increasingly important as they allow HR managers to spot changes and issues quickly and take action to maintain employee engagement and satisfaction. Sage People therefore incorporates pulse surveys and other similar features as a built-in function. 'It's about getting real-time feedback from the employees,' says Watmore. He notes that the employee induction process is an example of how useful this can be. 'Maybe at the end of onboarding you can send a survey to the new hires to ask them how the process went. Did you find something that they didn't like?' The next round of new hires can benefit from this feedback. Going forward, more sophisticated data analytics and, increasingly, AI mean that companies will be able to use platforms to generate ever-more useful cultural insights from the information they hold. Thus, the future of company culture is a sophisticated, ongoing tech-enabled conversation that delivers a better workplace for everyone. Discover more about how to instil a workplace culture to your business
Telegraph
07-07-2025
- Telegraph
Angela Rayner's banter police will suck what little joy we have left out of our lives
'The playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks in the workplace.' That's the official definition of 'office banter'. So you can see why it has to go – why Angela Rayner is doing everything in her power to bring about a 'banter ban' that will put an end to this perilous form of human connection. In our stark, new, legalistic world, even the most innocent words are heavy with sinister subtext. I mean, 'playful'? That's an HR summons, right there. Then there's 'friendly', which in 2025 conjures up only one thing: Harvey Weinstein, in a bathrobe. As for 'teasing', you might as well skip HR, the lawsuit and the trial, you're going down. Under the Deputy PM's Employment Rights Bill, which is currently working its way through Parliament, businesses would be forced to protect staff against such traumas – and by that, I mean the humorous and life-affirming daily exchanges that make communal existence in brick boxes bearable. Failure to safeguard employees against offence caused by casual office chats about 'protected characteristics' such as race, sex or religion would mean that a worker could take a firm to a tribunal, it has emerged. Or facilitate that process, I should say. Because, even without Rayner's Bill in place, tribunal claims over work banter rose 45 per cent in 2021 alone. All of which begs the question: what could possibly go wrong? Let's start with the wonderfully elastic concept of 'offence' – an abstraction that might have been invented for cynical, work-shy, opportunists the world over. The real beauty of 'offence' is that no third party will ever be qualified to judge what you happen to find offensive, so you can just throw it out there, like a grenade, and watch everyone freeze. Whiteboards offend me. It's their whiteness. And their squeakiness. That birthday card featuring a fat, middle-aged lady drinking wine could be deemed terminally offensive both by fat, middle-aged lushes and skinny, young, teetotallers. Any joke about clothing basically pertains to gender; any joke about food or drink could be made out to be about race or religion. Is there any form of small talk that doesn't, even in an oblique way, refer to 'protected characteristics'? 'You look nice' certainly isn't safe. Honestly, it's amazing how much untapped offence there is out there, once you know how to look for it. On the off chance that your subject matter passes the offence test, there is also always the possibility that you used 'harmful, triggering or emotive' language. It doesn't have to be intentional. For the purposes of the complainant, accidental will do just fine. And that, I'm afraid, takes us back to 'offensive'. Just last year, Lloyds Bank made itself the object of mass derision when it circulated guidance to employees cautioning against the use of the words 'guinea pig' and 'headless chicken' in the office: both apparently trauma-inducing for vegans. The great irony here is that Rayner's Bill has supposedly been designed to boost productivity for British workers and grow the economy. I'd love to hear the logic. Because everyone else has done the maths. They know that employers, who are already bleeding out, will either feel pressured into putting employees through expensive DEI training or hiring the 'diversity officers' some firms see as the only way to guard against the scourge of the perma-offended. They see this as a clear stepping up of Labour's 'war on business' – and there is no universe in which that leads to growth. As for productivity, we know – even without the endless studies that prove it – how beneficial happiness, connection and humour are. We have felt the boost prompted by a simple human exchange or bout of laughter in the middle of the working day. And perhaps one of the most infuriating aspects of these woke rules is the way they assume zero emotional intelligence on our part. Yes, there will always be that one character who is a little too fond of innuendo in every workplace – the one who tends to misjudge and overstep (and I work very hard to maintain that role, I can tell you). But most people are well aware of the perimeters of propriety. They don't need some government-issued diktat to tell them to behave like a cyborg, to stifle their working relationships or kill off the enormous amount of joy that can be had through the playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks. Otherwise known as 'banter'.
Fox News
05-07-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Is crying at work finally acceptable? What BBC readers and experts say about tearful employees
The BBC gathered its readers' opinions on whether it's acceptable to cry at work — and how your co-workers might perceive your tears, or lack thereof. In its article released on Saturday, the majority of respondents told the BBC that they find crying at work to be acceptable — but warned that others in the office may still be "a teensy bit judgemental" about weeping in the workplace. Clara, a 48-year-old from Lancaster, recalled crying at work after getting a "blasting" as a young employee, and later in her career "in frustration." "I've also cried after receiving bad news from home and left work immediately," she told the BBC. On the other hand, another respondent, Emma, told the outlet she felt she had to keep her emotions under control due to working in "a tough male-dominated environment" and would be tough on herself for "showing emotion or 'weakness.'" Despite the fact that there is some research to support the idea that women are more likely to cry than men, the BBC did hear from some men who were open about their experiences crying in front of co-workers. Guy Clayton, a doctor from London, told the outlet that he had often cried "with patients, colleagues and families over the years, when I've shared their sadness." A 38-year-old Londoner working in finance said that he had become emotional while dealing with personal issues at work in the past, but felt that it showed "a professional dedication" to still show up. The BBC heard from executive coach and success mentor Shereen Hoban, who argued that it's old-fashioned to find crying at work unacceptable. "We've moved beyond the old-school idea that professionalism means leaving emotion at the door," she told the outlet. "In today's world, emotional intelligence is a strength, not a liability." Career coach Georgia Blackburn told the BBC that it's not out of the ordinary for people to get upset at work, and asserted that employers need to understand how to deal with employees who are feeling down. "An employer that truly listens, shows compassion and understanding, is so much more likely to keep their staff motivated and happier in the long run," she claimed. Amy Powney, a fashion designer and mother, told the outlet that she believes crying at work has been "demonized" and refuses to apologize for her breakdowns. "I just think bring back the crying, bring back the emotions," she stated. "Women in leadership should be able to show their emotion. I think it's a superpower. I think it's a strength." CEO of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Ann Francke, warned that not everybody is accepting of weeping in the workplace — and you may be judged for doing so. She told the outlet that women who cry at work are seen as "too emotional" and men who let their emotions get the best of them may be seen as being soft or vulnerable. The CMI chief executive also warned bosses that senior staffers typically don't get the same leeway with their emotions that junior employees may receive. "When a senior leader cries, it can be seen as shocking or even inappropriate. But when handled with authenticity, it can also be powerful. It shows that leaders are human and care deeply about what they do," she told the BBC. The CMI left BBC readers with four tips about what to do if they become tearful at work. They included: "Give yourself permission to step back and take a moment." Another suggestion was that "you don't need to hide your emotions." The outlet called for taking "a short break" if needed. And finally: "Managers and colleagues need to acknowledge when their staff are crying – offer a tissue to them, don't pretend it's not happening."
