One of the country’s leading insurance providers, AXA Philippines together with the Philippine Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (PBCWE) held a virtual forum entitled “Creating A Safe and Inclusive Workplace” during AXA Philippines’ Compliance Week celebration to bolster the year’s theme: “Do your part. Be compliance smart.”
Among the highlights and key learnings from the event was that creating a safe and inclusive work culture can be an arduous process, but once achieved through self-analysis, education, and training, it can be a success. PBCWE Workplace Gender Equality Consultant Rachel Mary Anne Basas tackled the importance of fighting discrimination and bullying in the workplace and how it can affect the employees and the company culture as a whole.
“An unhealthy workplace can have many effects on the overall ‘health’ of an organization, may it be increased absenteeism, increased turnover, stress, decreased productivity and motivation, and poor customer service. It can also reduce a corporate’s good image, resulting in a lack of customer confidence,” Basas said.
Basas also referred to the Republic Act No. 11313: the Safe Spaces Act, which penalizes gender-based sexual harassment in the streets, public spaces, workplaces, and educational and training institutions as well as in online spaces. This Republic Act imposes a legal obligation to various institutions and organizations to prevent, deter, and take actions against any kind of harassment and misconduct on the job, to provide measures that will prevent gender-based sexual harassment in the workplace by creating an independent internal mechanism or a committee on decorum and investigation to investigate and address complaints, and by practicing and disseminating a code of conduct or workplace policy.
She also highlighted that organizations and companies can achieve an inclusive workplace by applying their people management and conflict resolution styles via remote channels and in distributed teams in order to provide a secure workplace and make employees feel welcome, safe, and confident with their self-defined identities.
For its part, AXA Philippines has established the Whistleblower Policy with zero tolerance for any kind of misconduct. It also protects anyone against reprisal or recriminatory action within its workplace, including AXA’s subsidiaries and affiliates.
With the Whistleblower Policy in place, the company will take urgent action against unprofessional conduct, customer mistreatment, acts that endanger the health, life, and safety of other employees, and discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation, disabilities, age, or attributions.
This policy scrutinizes all types of identified cases of misconduct to ensure an appropriate response to any alleged, suspected, or confirmed situations that could constitute a breach of the Codes, applicable legislation, and AXA’s ethics and values.
Basas also pointed out that checking in with employees and their managers on issues like bullying, discrimination, and sexual harassment, especially during the pandemic, should be done with extra care in mind since risks to mental awareness, stress, and anxiety are heightened during these trying times.
To help employees and give guidance on coping strategies and how to navigate these issues, AXA solidifies its support for their employees’ mental health through the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) where they offer workers direct access to sessions with a mental health professional or counselor. The sessions are free to employees and are treated with the utmost confidentiality.
Practicing safety, inclusion, and diversity in the work setting will continue to become imperative as key to employees’ health and business success and one that AXA Philippines takes seriously and continues to implement.