Workplace Color Spectrum®

 

Your Tool for a Better Workplace

The Workplace Color Spectrum® is a behavior rating tool. It’s a language tool to help you and your colleagues describe a range of behaviors in non-offensive, non-adversarial terms. 

How often have you heard someone use the term “harassment” (a legal term) incorrectly to mean anything they believe is unfair or bad? How do you think someone reacts when they’re told they’re a harasser, for example? People get defensive, adversarial and communication breaks down. Using the Workplace Color Spectrum limits those emotional responses — and it triggers behavioral change.

When a colleague says or does something that makes you uncomfortable, you have a choice. Instead of saying “hey that’s offensive” say “hey that’s orange!”

Green means being socially aware and respectful.

Green

Green means being socially aware and respectful. You consciously shift your perspective to consider others. You bring your best self to work when your behavior is green.

Yellow means you act before you think.

Yellow

Yellow means you act before you think. You’re reactive to people and situations, and not conscious of the way your behavior is impacting others. You're not your best self when your behavior is yellow.

Orange means you say and do things related to other people’s legally protected characteristics (race, sex, religion, age, etc.), negatively impacting your co-workers.

Orange

Orange means you say and do things related to other people’s legally protected characteristics (race, sex, religion, age, etc.), negatively impacting your co-workers. You aren’t governing your own behavior, and you’re contributing to a disrespectful workplace. You’re engaging in risky behavior when your behavior is orange.

Red means that the Orange behavior happens frequently negatively affecting and making the workplace toxic.

Red

Red means that the Orange behavior happens frequently negatively affecting and making the workplace toxic. Red conduct is illegal.

Download your Workplace Color Spectrum® Infographic and share it with your team.

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Emtrain Workplace Color Spectrum

How Our Clients Are Using the Workplace Color Spectrum®

Our clients incorporate the Workplace Color Spectrum® into their every day work lives. We hear great stories, like when a CEO stopped an inappropriate story being told at a group lunch by saying “that’s getting a little orange,” or how HR teams have adopted the Workplace Color Spectrum® to help explain to people why certain behaviors aren’t acceptable in their organization. 

One of the things that the Workplace Color Spectrum® brings to light is that people have different perspectives: one person might think an action is Green and another might say it’s Orange. With five generations in the workplace and increasing diversity of race and nationality, it’s bound to happen. The whole point is to help colleagues address what feels uncomfortable, stop and apologize, and go forward on common ground.

How We Use the Workplace Color Spectrum® in Our Online Training

The Workplace Color Spectrum® is a big part of how we help grow awareness and empathy — and nudge behavior change — in the workplace. Emtrain’s interactive tool engages employees to help them think and see if they’re an outlier and teaches them the impact of behaviors. It also helps us teach laws and regulations.

Provocative Content
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Emtrain’s video content is a cornerstone of our learning experience. We provide learners with relevant, thought provoking workplace scenarios depicting some of the most common culture issues facing organizations today. Our video content has been recognized by the New York Times, Vice News, and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Employee Sentiment Questions
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Workplace culture issues are never black and white, and neither is our content. Our nuanced workplace videos serve to illustrate the course messaging, and provide context for the Workplace Color Spectrum®. Fixing workplace culture means having tough conversations, this is the content that starts the conversation.

Data Driven Insights
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Our Workplace Color Spectrum® is not just a common language used to identify bad behavior. It is an analytical tool embedded in all of our courses that allows us to gather learner sentiment about certain culture issues, then deliver that data to you in a digestible format so you can spend less time diagnosing culture, and more time fixing it.

What’s happening in your workplace?

Emtrain’s Preventing Workplace Harassment online training teaches much more than the laws and regulations. We explore your workplace culture, through the eyes of employees, to understand how prevalent bad behaviors might be, and if they feel comfortable addressing them in a healthy feedback cycle. Our Workplace Culture Report 2020  found that there’s still a lot of work for organizations to do to create healthy workplace cultures. Contact us to see how we can help.

44%

of employees say that if someone does something inappropriate in the workplace, people will let them know

46%

of employees agree that their co-workers understand the impact their words and behaviors have on those around them

34%

of employees have to minimize part of their heritage and/or personal identity in order to fit into a job

Curious to see how your workplace compares with others globally?