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Description of the dimensions of psychological climate in the company

Position Papers Toolkit

A psychological climate refers to an  individual employee’s perception of the psychological impact of the work environment on their well-being.  It includes dimensions such as autonomy, trust, cohesiveness, pressure, support, recognition, fairness and innovation. It also takes into account job specific properties such as role clarity and workload. We can distinguish three dimensions of psychological climate.
 

  1. Diversity climate: This is the degree to which a company advocate fair human resource politics and socially integrated underrepresented employees. The underlying idea behind building and maintaining strong diversity climates is that organisations focuses on equality of treatment across employees through the use of fair policies and the absence of discrimination as well as integration of all personnel. This is characterized by openness toward, and appreciation of individual differences in terms of race/ ethnicity, gender, demographic and cultural backgrounds. A strong diversity climate is one that has considerable demographic diversity, which is integrated throughout the organisation. Investing in a strong diversity has been shown to be advantageous for employees and companies by providing a competitive advantage for the companies. However, it is unknown how these relationships apply to neurodivergent employees, due to the fact that many companies have not considered neurodiversity as a type of diversity

  2. Inclusion climate: This is defined as a collaborative, supportive and respectful environment that increases the participation and contribution of all employees. It’s more about how well the team members feel they fit into the company. Inclusion requires intentional efforts from the leadership to shape a this climate.  An inclusive climate is characterized as a feeling of belonging. An inclusion climate is broader in scope than the diversity climate.

  3. Ethical climate:  This defines what is correct behaviour and how ethical issues should be handled within companies. It plays a key role in organisational life and influences both the individual and company outcomes and behaviours. Ethical climates are crucial to consider because to gain a full understanding of the neurodiversity movements it is necessary to engage in conversations related to moral, social, legal and medical topics that are strongly related to ethics.
     

In inclusive workplace environments, the goal is that employees of all background are fairly treated, valued for who they are and included in core decision-making.

There is a three dimension of inclusion climate: 

  • First dimension of inclusion climate focuses fairly implemented employment practices. This dimension closely resembles the principle of diversity climate but is more expansive, as creating inclusive climates more than increase diverse representation and implementing equitable HRM-practices; it requires a change in interaction patterns.

  • Second dimension of inclusion climate focuses on the integration of differences, within the workplace that depicts the comfort employee feels when bringing their identities to work.

  • Third dimension of inclusion climate focuses on inclusion in decision-making within the workplace that captures the extent to which the diverse perspectives of employees are involved and used.

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