Recap of NASEM Summit Session on Soteria Solutions’ Collaboration with NOAA
Part 1 of 2: Creating safe, respectful workplaces based on social norms and data
Jane Stapleton, Soteria Solutions Co-Founder and President joined Kelley Bonner, LCSW, MA, Director, Workplace Violence Prevention and Response for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the Third Annual Public Summit of the National Academies’ Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education.
At this session with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), Stapleton and Bonner discussed Comprehensive Approaches to Assessing Climate and Measuring Prevalence through Surveys. They emphasized their problem-solving approach based on evaluating which existing factors within the NOAA workplace can be leveraged to influence positive cultural changes within the organization.
Often people use workplace culture surveys to identify their organization’s problems – but that identification is only a piece of understanding how to improve workplaces and reduce risks.
In addition to understanding challenges and unhealthy characteristics, Soteria Solutions’ approach emphasized the positive and healthy components of NOAA’s workplace – and went beyond a risk-focused or protective framework.
In Soteria Solutions’ unique comprehensive approach to prevention, they used data from the workplace culture survey and communications with NOAA leaders and team members to determine what are strengths within the organization, and how those strengths will drive prevention. This included identifying prevalence, risk areas and protective factors – and then using those protective factors in the prevention strategy.
This is a different approach than what many organizations take, because it’s based on the science of social norms. This means that if it can be accurately identified what people actually think and do – based on reality, instead of perception or pluralistic ignorance – misperceptions can be corrected and positive actions can be encouraged, based on realistic circumstances.
As Stapleton summarized, “We wanted individuals to identify…perceptions of others’ beliefs and behaviors, as well as their own beliefs and behaviors, so that we can…look at the difference between the perception and the actual sort of belief and behavior, to really correct the misperceptions.”
“Violence is intersectional – and it’s really important to not just think in a risk framework,” as Bonner emphasized. In this context with NOAA, intersectional means looking at the variety of individual and collective identities (including gender, sex, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, geographic location and more), and seeing how systematic barriers and oppression impact people who have multiple identities. For instance, a White woman will experience sexual harassment in a different way than a Black woman.
Soteria Solutions’ intersectional, identity-focused analysis impacted decisions about what survey questions to ask while collaborating with NOAA to better understand their workplace culture and challenges. The survey paired identity questions with social norms questions, as Soteria Solutions worked with NOAA to understand how employees of different identities experience the NOAA workforce, so they can bring their whole selves to work.
In Soteria Solutions’ detailed survey data review with NOAA, they dispelled misperceptions, including:
Misperception: Nobody wants others to intervene when there are issues.
Fact from survey: Most people want their colleagues to intervene if they see a problem.
Misperception: Sexual assault and sexual harassment are not problems and are not common at NOAA.
Fact from survey: More than half have observed some form of sexual assault or harassment, and nearly one-third have personally experienced some form of sexual assault or harassment.
One key trend recognized very early on was that at NOAA, there was not just sexual assault and harassment – but also other types of bullying and harassment.
The survey results also identified healthy factors, including workplace satisfaction. For example, Soteria Solutions and NOAA learned that 63% of respondents thought the work they personally do at NOAA is important and personally meaningful to them, and they really enjoy working at NOAA.
Soteria Solutions followed up on survey results to encourage NOAA to establish supervisor training, including how to intervene as a supervisor, model appropriate behavior for others and access resources.
As a result, Soteria Solutions was able to implement their unique strategy to help NOAA by highlighting the positive and protective factors of the workplace culture, so these protective factors can be used to build prevention strategies. The data gathered from the workplace culture survey provides the anchor necessary to plan prevention strategies.
In part 2 of this 2-part blog series, Soteria Solutions will talk about another key theme discussed at NASEM’s Summit: Engaging NOAA’s workforce to inform the survey and recruitment, and then sharing the findings with the workforce.
If you or someone you know has questions about workplace culture surveys, leveraging social norms and changing workplace cultures, please call Soteria Solutions at (603) 815-4190 or email info@soteriasolutions.org.