Canadian organizations double down on inclusion amid backlash

“We all feel incredibly beleaguered that there is a backlash.”

So said American legal scholar Kenji Yoshino, speaking at a recent conference on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Toronto.

“But equality has gone through so much worse in both of our countries, and we've survived to tell the tale every single time. There's no reason to believe that it's going to come to a screeching halt now.”

In a climate of heightened scrutiny and polarization, the future of DEI in the workplace has become a subject of debate among Canadian employers and HR professionals.

But there’s room for hope, said the chief justice Earl Warren professor of constitutional law at the NYU School of Law.

“If you think back to the history of either of our countries, we can think about the taking of land from Indigenous peoples. We can think about slavery and segregation. We can think about internment. We can think about the legalization of domestic violence, to say nothing of the practice of coverture where women didn't have an identity outside the identity of their husband legally. We can think about rampant sexual harassment in the workplace. You can think about the criminalization of same-sex sexuality. and so on and so forth. The institutionalization of people with disabilities – I could go on and on,” he said.

“Every single time, equality has prevailed. There is no reason to believe that if good-minded people like the people in this room stay the course, that it will not prevail again.”

Yoshino was speaking at a conference organized by Catalyst, where organizational leaders gathered to discuss how employers can sustain and advance DEI efforts, as external pressures and internal challenges threaten to stall or reverse progress.

Sustaining DEI in climate of scrutiny and polarization

Jennifer McCollum, president and CEO of Catalyst, opened the discussion by acknowledging the complex environment facing organizations today.

 “It's… a heavy time right now… the social and the political, the legal reality in the U.S. has been well covered in the headlines. It does have real implications, not only in that country… but also ripple effects globally, including right here in Canada.”

But while the U.S. has seen a wave of scrutiny, lawsuits, political backlash and program rebranding, the Canadian context feels different, she said: “Inclusion here... is positioned as what seems to be a real driver of your national competitiveness… But it does take a lot of courage. It takes courage and resilience to hold steady when the headwinds are this strong. And Canada is proving that out.”

In the end, while the backlash is very loud, the business case is louder, said McCollum.

“That's what gives me a lot of hope. Beneath all this noise, there still is real commitment… There was a lot of short-term fear and panic, and now we're moving toward ‘What does the long game look like? How do we balance the defence with offence? How do we reimagine our efforts?’” she said.

“In some ways, it's becoming more strategic... Because when you make it about winning in the marketplace, it is really hard to shut down or stop.”

CIBC: levelling and engagement

Yoshino also talked about a change in strategy – given recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions around affirmative action at universities – from lifting to levelling.

The former involves a targeted program, for example, that tries to lift up a marginalized group by providing a ramp up to the playing field, whereas the latter focuses on the playing field itself, he said.

“So, we're not going to target any group… but we're going to level the playing field and make sure that it is entirely free of bias so that everyone can compete on equal terms.”

Brent Chamberlain, vice president of inclusion at CIBC, also referenced levelling when he spoke at the conference about the need to return to core principles.

“We still have an opportunity to come together under the banner of inclusion, but to do that, we really need to go back to the fundamentals,” he said, adding that the work in DEI is done for two main reasons: to create opportunity and promote belonging.

“We, in our roles as HR practitioners, DEI practitioners, sponsors of this work, are trying to find the best talent from the widest possible pool and we do that through a variety of mechanisms, and I do think that levelling is something that will make that change happen in the sustainable long term.”

As for belonging, that’s a necessary precondition for engagement, he says.

“When I look at the results at CIBC, it's not even a contest about what is influencing engagement: It's belonging. If you remove belonging, our engagement scores will plummet. If our engagement scores plummet, our productivity will plummet, and so will our bottom line.”

Chamberlain also addressed the ongoing debate about meritocracy, citing its controversy, particularly in the U.S.

“We all have a role to challenge the current definition and how it's being used, so I think that's probably the biggest challenge facing us. We need to talk about the fact that inclusion-focused efforts improve the fairness of merit-based systems, and we need to explain how that happens through the leveling process.

“When we talk about our work to remove bias from systems, any kind of system, whether it's a talent acquisition system, or a support system for our stakeholders, that's the work that we know is important.”

TD Bank: business acumen and DEI metrics

Janice Farrell Jones, senior vice-president of everyday savings and investing at TD Bank, spoke about the importance of moving beyond policy to foster real belonging.

“Thirty years ago… we were the first Canadian bank to offer same-sex spousal benefits and it's an important way of stating what you stand for, what the bare minimum is, what the rules of the game are. But I think we all want to be in a place where policy is table stakes, not differentiating, and build from there, and make policy the starting point.”

She shared a practical example from TD, which earlier had “quite impressive” stats when it came to women in leadership roles.

“But then when we went a layer down and we said, ‘Well, how many of them are business driving? How many of them are in P&L roles?’ And, really, what we were asking is ‘How many have the potential to actually run this business?’ the answer was very few.”

When her team delved deeper, they found there was an experience gap when it came to women and their business acumen and understanding of the mechanics of the P&L. As a result, TD started a program called Business Acumen for Women.

“We've been running this program every year, and we've seen tremendous progress in terms of representation in those business driving roles,” said Farrell Jones.

Also important? Measuring your success in DEI.

“At TD, we ask some very, very specific questions that get at belonging and inclusion. So, things like ‘On my team, my voice matters’ or ‘I can feel confident at work’ or ‘I can be myself at work.’ And they all ladder up to an inclusion score,” she said.

“At the bank I work at, you do not succeed if your inclusion scores are poor. And you are asked about it, you're held to account. Because we know that it really, really matters.”

Toronto Pearson: Using data and celebrating wins

Also at the conference, Molara Awosedo, director of inclusion and workplace culture at Toronto Pearson, described how data and continuous improvement sustain momentum.

“It's no secret that January, February were tough times for some DEI professionals: ‘Where were we going? What were we going to do? What language were we going to use?’” she said.

But that’s where the use of numbers can help make your case.

“When I'm sharing data around our procurement strategies, our recruitment strategies, even how we're communicating to our employees, it lands well with our leadership because they're seeing how important it is that we have this in the organization,” said Awosedo.

And it all starts with leadership being both vocal and visible – not just behind closed doors but at board meetings and other meetings – about your inclusion efforts and why it's important to your organization, she said, adding that employee feedback is also important to driving success from a DEI standpoint.

“We’ve made such great strides in closing gaps, from recruitment to promotion to compensation, making sure everything's just fair. And with that also comes celebrating the wins… it's important for us to sometimes take a step back and recognize the importance of ‘You did a good job, you closed a gap, you really drove that inclusion policy.’”

Rogers, ConocoPhillips: ‘Do the work’

For Jay Brewster, senior manager of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at Rogers Communications, DEI is also about the power of storytelling, by talking to people and engaging with their diversity groups (employee resource groups).

“[It’s about] really trying to understand our people and the barriers and the things that they're experiencing in the workplace… and all of that work is done in partnership with our employees where they are sharing their stories and experiences because that's where the richness is. And then really helping ensure that our leaders are able to lean in on those difficult conversations.”

But Brewster also had a personal word of advice.

“Stop telling people to bring their authentic selves to work... unless you've done the work,” he said.

“I’m a queer man; I'm somebody that has an invisible disability – do not tell me to come and be my authentic self if your space is not safe. You are setting people up to experience harm and trauma so do the work, hold your people and leaders accountable and then invite us to come and be our authentic selves.”

Christina Boim, director of commercial and joint ventures at ConocoPhillips Canada, highlighted the pivotal role of middle managers as the first line for the employee experience.

“They are the ones day-to-day leading the meetings, having discussions, creating safe spaces, and they are the ones that are trying to implement our inclusion strategies. So, they become the culture carriers that help us implement our business goals,” she said, citing the importance of training managers in three key areas: language, listening and leadership.

Dell: addressing internal barriers for women of colour

Speaking at the Catalyst conference, Naz Zehra, learning and development business partner at Dell Technologies Canada, also addressed internal barriers.

“What I mean by that is internal to self. So, these are beliefs that we hold about our own capabilities, stories we tell ourselves, that voice saying, ‘I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not technical enough.’”

Women are socialized to strive for perfection and are held to higher standards by both men and women, she said at the conference, along with being socialized to put other people first.

“We have women, especially women of colour, raising their hands for everything, doing all this extra work, they're leading ERGs and they're doing work that's important but it's not always high visibility… but when it comes to our own development we don't have the bandwidth.

“So, what we're left with is this talent pool who has these limiting self-beliefs and they're overburdening themselves with extra work that is not high visibility and not always a career growth driver.”

As a result, women of colour should take a hard look at where they’re investing their time and energy and, if it's not serving their career growth, make some changes, said Zehra.

Also speaking at the session was Letecia Rose, chief equity, diversion and inclusion officer at Fasken. She spoke about Catalyst’s research on emotional tax, but emphasized other burdens for women of colour.

“We have to be twice as competent to get half of what people would see from us. We have to be twice as confident. So that is a tax that we have to wear. But it's also from a performance perspective. When we perform, we have to be twice as better, three times as better,” said Rose.

And that’s why it’s important for employers to create an environment where people “can actually come to the table so we can actually make changes and have honest conversations.”