School of Health & Wellbeing

Each year, the IHW Athena SWAN staff consultation working group conducts a more in-depth exploration of how staff at IHW view or feel about certain topics that impact their working lives.

The overall aim is to explore how IHW can better tackle these issues and to make recommendations about working, equality, and management practices to the IHW Athena SWAN self assessment team.

The staff consultation process involves carrying out qualitative interviews with staff from across the research groups and professional services within the institute. The consultation topics reflect pertinent issues that have arisen from previous consultations or from the staff survey, and often touch on challenging or sensitive issues. Recent consultation topics include staff experiences of:

• maternity and carers polices,
• stress within the workplace,
• the P&DR process and career development within IHW.

The most recent consultation topic, "Dignity at work", focused on understanding people’s experiences and views on bullying and harassment within IHW. This was an eye-opening exercise, and although staff perceived a positive work culture within IHW, the consultation found staff had experienced both overt and covert bullying. Recommendations from this staff consultation included a shift away from a culture that allows these incidents to occur, by promoting staff awareness of what constitutes harassing behaviour and the processes which are in place to report inappropriate behaviour, particularly where there may be a perceived power imbalance among those involved.

We believe the staff consultation serves an important function within IHW, allowing a more focused and nuanced reflection on issues which are important to staff. Through the staff consultation and its recommendations we are proud to contribute to a more inclusive and equal working culture within IHW.

Group chairs 

Karen Wetherall
Research Associate (Mental Health and Wellbeing)
Karen.Wetherall@glasgow.ac.uk 

Jack Melson 
Lecturer (Mental Health and Wellbeing)
Ambrose.Melson@glasgow.ac.uk 

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First published: 25 October 2021