Organisational Values Statement
Purpose
Health Consumers Tasmania’s Organisational Values aim to inform the way in which our workers (staff and volunteers) work, how our organisation portrays itself, and support the decision-making around the nature of work the organisation commits to.
These Values describe why and the how we operate rather than what we aim to
achieve.
These Values also complement internal policies which describe the ways in which we expect the working environment of our organisation to be like, including:
- HCT Code of Conduct
- HCT Grievance Policy
- HCT Workplace Behaviour Policy
These values work alongside the Health Consumers Tasmania Strategic Plan. As an organisation, HCT’s six principles around how we work are:
- Led by consumers
- Providing an independent voice
- Lived experience is valued, safe and treated with respect
- Working in partnership
- Developing a strong evidence and informed base
- Strategic, systems focused and state-wide
Process
These Values were developed through a collaborative effort of all Health Consumers Tasmania staff. The process was staged and consisted of the following steps:
- Our Quality Improvement processes identified that our organisation was ready to describe our shared values and codify our ways of working.
- We undertook an ‘Organisational Values Survey’, a part of which asked participants to list five key words or phrases which they felt captured how we want to work with our communities and each other.
- At an annual all-staff face-to-face meeting in Scottsdale, staff undertook a collaborative theming workshop. Words and phrases from the survey were grouped into main themes (values). Five core themes emerged from the survey data and the sixth underpinning value (Integrity of process) became apparent in this process.
- From the resulting word groupings/themes six draft values statements and underpinning actions were written, which were reviewed by staff and refined.
- As part of our ongoing Quality Improvement processes, we will review our values and this document to ensure they are aligned.
Values
Committing to Values Driven Work through Integrity of Process
Health Consumers Tasmanian is a values-driven organization and believes that good outcomes for consumers are achieved through prioritizing the integrity of the processes that we use in our work. This means that we aim to:
- Always act in ways which match our values,
- Be thoughtful in the processes and methods we choose to use
- Continuously advocate for the importance of having integrity in process
- Acknowledge and commit the time to work at the pace of trust
- Encourage other organisations we work with to respect our values when working with consumers
Aspiring towards Justice and Equity
Health Consumers Tasmania is driven by an aspiration to improve justice and equity for Tasmanians in our health system, but also in society more generally. To achieve this we:
- Maintain the vision for outcomes which improve equity and justice
- Seek out areas of inequity and injustice
- Are accountable in the topics we prioritise and projects we work on
- Act in a way which is transparent and truthful
- Always support and empower consumers through our work
Valuing Inclusion and Accessibility
Heath Consumers Tasmania embraces diversity and commits to promoting inclusion and accessibility in our own work as well as advocating for inclusion and accessibility outside of our organisation. To do this we:
- Truly value and strive to learn from people with diverse backgrounds and lived experiences
- Privilege voices that are not often heard
- Foster a culture of information sharing and mutual learning
- Commit to going the extra mile to ensure our work is accessible and inclusive, even if this is time-consuming
- Facilitate the removal of barriers to participation
Being Creative and Nimble
In our work, Health Consumers Tasmania values creativity and adaptability. We encourage adaptable, responsive and strategic action to achieve solutions. In our work we:
- Encourage innovation and ‘thinking outside the box’
- Draw from a variety of processes and frameworks to overcome entrenched problems, eg. design thinking, systems thinking, and ecological design
- Can be adaptive and responsive to our circumstance
- Acknowledge the concept of dignity of risk when working with consumers and accept risk as a part of learning
- Are resilient in advocating for change
Championing lived experience as expertise
Health Consumers Tasmania champions the lived experience of consumers as true knowledge and values their contributions as experts. This means that we:
- Honour the role of the health consumer in decision-making
- Are led by and work alongside consumers
- Advocate for the importance and value of the consumer voice
- Acknowledge power imbalances and strive to address them through curiosity, humility and by constantly learning from consumers and community
- Understand the importance of place and context and how it shapes perception and engagement
- Use consumer perspectives as valid truth alongside empirical evidence to inform policy and actions
- Empower consumers through training and commit to mutual capacity building
- Trust consumers to use their skills and knowledge for decision-making
- Create opportunities for genuine co-design
Prioritise Relationships
Health Consumers Tasmania prioritises the forming and maintaining of good relationships within the organization, as well as with consumers and with other stakeholders. We act in ways which:
- Purposefully support and value good relationships
- Create a culture of mutual respect and teamwork
- Establish teams which include staff, consumers and other stakeholders
- Listen actively and learn from one another
- Communicate openly and honestly
- Support each other’s best selves