This is a great thing, and if you’re reading this, you clearly recognise that as well. However, increasing diversity hasn’t come without some challenges. As people of widely diverse backgrounds and experiences come together, they can sometimes have trouble relating to each other and forging strong working relationships.
Let’s be clear, this doesn’t mean that any of these people are bad actors. In reality, most people mean well and want to establish positive connections with colleagues — connections that translate into a more successful business and working environment where employees can have cooperative conversations and work towards shared organisational goals.
The key to attaining these goals is building an inclusive workplace. Inclusiveness refers to an environment where all feel welcome and valued for who they are and the unique attributes they bring. Inclusive teams support and complement one another, creating positive work environments that make people want to stay and help them become personally invested in producing great outcomes for their organisation.
An excellent way to build an inclusive workforce is to use prosocial training. If you don’t know what prosocial means or haven’t even heard of it, that’s okay! We’re going to talk about what it is and how it can help build an inclusive workforce that will pay dividends for both your employees and your business.
What is prosocial behaviour?
Being prosocial means being oriented toward the betterment of others and of society in general. This doesn’t mean prosocial people neglect themselves, but there is an emphasis on the well-being of other people. In other words, prosocial behaviour is behaviour that benefits others and when all members of a group exhibit such prosocial behaviours, they coexist harmoniously.
Prosocial behaviours can include:
- Altruism (sharing, helping, volunteering, donating, etc.)
- Positive interactions (being kind, practising positive conflict resolution, having cooperative conversations, acting in accordance with values all in the group share, etc.)
- Cooperating (contributing to a group, doing one’s part, working towards shared goals, etc.)
Prosocial behaviour can look like many different things. In the workplace it’s:
- Investing in employee mental health wellbeing
- Learning mental health is all about our relationships at work and at home
- Leading with vulnerability
- Practising psychological flexibility
- Knowing the story of your past
- Noticing the child, adolescent and adult in you
- Deeply knowing your values and what want to stand for
- Knowing you can notice your past private mental experience and discriminate between current dangers
- Choosing to move forward in your life in your valued direction
- About noticing and knowing you have a choice in how you respond at any time to any situation
- Communicating how to move from me to we and work
as a team towards group shared goals - Moving closer to people who are important to you, even when difficult thoughts and feelings come up
- Best practice human resource management
- Contagious!
The benefits of prosocial behaviour in the workplace
- Positive emotions. If you were to survey a group of people who volunteer or donate to charity, you’d find many of them feel a great sense of satisfaction when they help others. That’s not to say they only exhibit prosocial behaviours because it makes them feel good, but positive emotions are an added benefit. When people exhibit prosocial behaviour in the workplace, the same thing happens. They feel happier and more cheerful, which is great for them and somewhat contagious.
- Social acceptance. When workers cooperate, share and help others, their colleagues generally like them better. This makes it much easier to get each job done quickly and efficiently. If you’ve ever been to a meeting where one of the people wasn’t popular, you’ll no doubt know how hard it can be to get anything done one or more workers aren’t accepted socially by colleagues.
- People who hate what they do tend to do the bare minimum, aren’t fun to be around and really disengage from their colleagues and the work they do. They’re unproductive, produce mediocre results and are reluctant to contribute ideas. Prosocial workers enjoy helping their colleagues, throwing their ideas into the ring and producing good results for their team and organisation. In other words, they’re engaged with what they do.
- Better collaboration and increased productivity. Positive emotions, social acceptance and engagement in the workplace all contribute to improved collaboration among colleagues, which itself leads to increased productivity. So, when you encourage prosocial behaviour within your organisation, you’re increasing outputs and contributing to reaching organisational goals like reduced costs or increased customer/patient outcomes.
- Lower impact from stress. We all get stressed and we all know how detrimental it can be to us and to those around us. But stress is a natural part of life and we wouldn’t be able to eliminate it even if we tried. That doesn’t mean we have to accept the negative consequences of it, though, because research shows prosocial behaviour actually counteracts and prevents the negative effects of stress.
- Higher morale. When teams work well together, progress is smoother and that improves team morale.
- People feel their work is a career, not a paycheck. Happy, cheerful people with high morale who are accepted by their colleagues and engaged in their workplace feel their work contributes to their career and is meaningful. They don’t just show up every day with a paycheck as their only incentive.
- Reduced turnover and lower costs. People who like their team, their employer and their job are far less likely to quit. That means prosocial behaviour also reduces staff turnover rates. And since it costs about 33% of a worker’s annual salary to replace them, reducing staff turnover also reduces costs.
- A broader pool of ideas and experiences to draw upon. One of the greatest benefits of having a diverse workforce is that a wide range of views and experiences leads to more, and higher, quality ideas. But that only happens if people are willing to voice their ideas. Prosocial behaviour that encourages engagement and social acceptance makes it far more likely that team members will feel comfortable putting forward their ideas.
10 ways you can promote prosocial behaviour in your workplace
Many people know how to be prosocial. But we don’t always feel inclined to exhibit prosocial behaviours, especially if our environment doesn’t support it. So, one of the most important things you can do to get your teams to be more prosocial is to create an environment that supports and encourages prosocial behaviour. Thankfully, there are 10 really simple things you can do to get the ball rolling:
- Explain rules and expectations and why they matter, not just that people are supposed to follow/meet them (but this is just a starting point — eventually you’ll all be setting rules and expectations together that align with your shared values)
- Model and encourage helpful behaviours and recognise and praise them when they occur
- Set specific prosocial goals that align with individual and shared values and provide feedback about progress toward them
- Prepare people for new situations via tools like role-playing and social stories
- Welcome and encourage other people’s perspectives and ideas
- Demonstrate empathy and practise polite behaviour even in tense or high-stress situations
- Encourage your team when they seem frustrated and feel like giving up
- Create healthy ways for people to share their frustrations and even their anger
- Encourage positivity, strong communication and working together
- Book your workers in for professional prosocial training
Yes, you read that right, you can even find prosocial training!
What prosocial training can do for your organisation
To those who prosocial behaviour comes naturally, it can be hard to imagine why any adult might need training in how to cooperate, help and share. But the thing is, many people just don’t get the opportunity to develop those skills in a safe space when growing up. Fear of failure or judgment can also prevent many people from fully participating and engaging in their workplace. So, there are many situations where training can drastically speed up the process of building efficient, effective teams. And there are many instances where training is the only way some people will be able to develop the skills they need.
Training designed to increase prosocial behaviour uses evolutionary science to improve cooperation and collaboration within groups of people — it’s about creating groups that work for everyone. Prosocial facilitators use a wide range of proven, effective strategies to evolve teams and even entire workplaces into thriving ecosystems where every piece of the puzzle works seamlessly with the others in harmony. Facilitators help workers become aware of their own internal thoughts, assess the quality of their relationship and explore what we call the ‘cultural agreements’ that we all create. Through this process, participants examine what matters most to them about being part of their group or team and use that to make the shift from focusing only on their own goals to instead focussing on how they can work cooperatively with their peers to achieve shared goals.
Here at ACT Curious, we use a range of tools to promote prosocial behaviour including:
- Individual and group interest exploration matrices — these allow individuals and groups to explore their values and what matters most to them, the feelings and thoughts they have, how those internal thoughts and feelings may affect their actions, and how they can take actions that respect those thoughts and feelings while also allowing them to conduct themselves in a way that’s consistent with their values and what matters to them and which contributes to achieving the group’s goals
- Core design principles — these are a set of eight principles that enable leaders and teams to create environments where all group members can thrive and work cooperatively to achieve shared goals
You can learn more about these resources on our Prosocial @ Work page.
Prosocial @ Work training is more than just good Human Resource Management. It’s about valuing the relationships and culture you want to build in your workplace. It’s a program that helps all employees understand, on a really deep level, who and what is important to them, what they want their life story to be about and what they want to stand for in their life. So, it’s also a valuable way leaders can work towards achieving one of the fundamental goals of any person in a leadership role — to increase wellbeing in the world. That means it’s not just for senior executive. Prosocial @ Work is for all workers. Booking Prosocial @ Work is for all leaders, at every level, who want knowledge and tools to help their team become more psychologically flexible, which in turn leads to more efficient, effective workplaces and a better world.
If you’re unsure whether prosocial training is right for your organisation, we’re putting together a guide to help you make that assessment. Simply reach out to our team to receive a copy when it’s published.
What prosocial training can do for your organisation
To those who prosocial behaviour comes naturally, it can be hard to imagine why any adult might need training in how to cooperate, help and share. But the thing is, many people just don’t get the opportunity to develop those skills in a safe space when growing up. Fear of failure or judgment can also prevent many people from fully participating and engaging in their workplace. So, there are many situations where training can drastically speed up the process of building efficient, effective teams. And there are many instances where training is the only way some people will be able to develop the skills they need.
Training designed to increase prosocial behaviour uses evolutionary science to improve cooperation and collaboration within groups of people — it’s about creating groups that work for everyone. Prosocial facilitators use a wide range of proven, effective strategies to evolve teams and even entire workplaces into thriving ecosystems where every piece of the puzzle works seamlessly with the others in harmony. Facilitators help workers become aware of their own internal thoughts, assess the quality of their relationship and explore what we call the ‘cultural agreements’ that we all create. Through this process, participants examine what matters most to them about being part of their group or team and use that to make the shift from focusing only on their own goals to instead focussing on how they can work cooperatively with their peers to achieve shared goals.
Here at ACT Curious, we use a range of tools to promote prosocial behaviour including:
- Individual and group interest exploration matrices — these allow individuals and groups to explore their values and what matters most to them, the feelings and thoughts they have, how those internal thoughts and feelings may affect their actions, and how they can take actions that respect those thoughts and feelings while also allowing them to conduct themselves in a way that’s consistent with their values and what matters to them and which contributes to achieving the group’s goals
- Core design principles — these are a set of eight principles that enable leaders and teams to create environments where all group members can thrive and work cooperatively to achieve shared goals
You can learn more about these resources on our Prosocial @ Work page.
Prosocial @ Work training is more than just good Human Resource Management. It’s about valuing the relationships and culture you want to build in your workplace. It’s a program that helps all employees understand, on a really deep level, who and what is important to them, what they want their life story to be about and what they want to stand for in their life. So, it’s also a valuable way leaders can work towards achieving one of the fundamental goals of any person in a leadership role — to increase wellbeing in the world. That means it’s not just for senior executive. Prosocial @ Work is for all workers. Booking Prosocial @ Work is for all leaders, at every level, who want knowledge and tools to help their team become more psychologically flexible, which in turn leads to more efficient, effective workplaces and a better world.
If you’re unsure whether prosocial training is right for your organisation, we’re putting together a guide to help you make that assessment. Simply reach out to our team to receive a copy when it’s published.
Are you ready to level-up your organisations’ inclusivity?
ACT Curious can be your partner in this endeavour. We’re ready to help you build an inclusive workplace or improve upon the inclusiveness you’ve already built. To get started, just download our ACT Curious Inclusivity Action Plan today!
AUTHOR Michelle Trudgen, Clinical Director, ACT Curious.
CONTACT US 📞 0438 922 979 (Australia Wide) email: hello@actcurious.com
DISCLAIMER The content of this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
COPYRIGHT © ACT Curious Pty Ltd, 2023
