From performative to practical: DEI roundtable

Recently, three Canadian HR leaders gathered for a roundtable on DEI, clearly showing their devotion to the cause. Despite their different sectors — retail, transportation and culture — there were many commonalities among the group speaking to Canadian HR Reporter.

While the leaders — Francinne Hansen, CPO at the LCBO; Molara Awosedo, director of inclusion and workplace culture at Toronto Pearson Airport; and Manuelita Cherizard, CHRO at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) — are each taking a slightly different approach, they all recognize the importance of embedding DEI into the day to day, on being authentic, embracing employee feedback, supporting leadership and protecting confidential data.

“By being very deliberate and intentional, that's when you see magic start to happen. And it just naturally starts to become a DNA and part of the organization,” said Hansen. “It just... creates environments where people can truly thrive.”

The full video can be found here.

From standalone programs to ‘inclusion by design’

For Awosedo, the biggest innovation these days is “inclusion by design,” with DEI shifting from standalone programs to everyday systems.

“Whether that's your hiring, your retention, your performance feedback, even program or project staffing, we're ensuring that those DEI values are not just a standalone, but really embedded into the everyday work,” she said.

That shift isn’t optional if employers want to keep their youngest talent, said Awosedo, citing the challenge of performative DEI.

“Employees, especially our genZ employees, our millennial employees, they don't want to see the symbolic gestures anymore. They want to see DEI that really has substance. And so they're looking for us to be the leaders in that world and ensure that we're not just talking the talk, but we're actually walking the walk.”

Hansen agrees that it’s about integrating DEI into the organization, not as a standalone HR activity.

“It is very much embedded into our people strategy and, more importantly, our business strategy. And it is a big part of the leadership and the leadership development that we do,” she said.

“We're really focused on making sure that we are designing on purpose and with intent… so that it's not an afterthought, it's not window dressing… and that it's authentic and real.”

As an example, the LCBO realized that straight white men were largely missing from employee resource group (ERG) events.

“What we discovered was they're quite uncomfortable with the topic in general around diversity and they don't really know what to say and they often don't know what to do and ‘When should I be doing something?’” she said. “So, we did recently host a session purposefully for white men in order to invite them into the conversation and to help them navigate this.”

Starting from day one: Onboarding with DEI

At the ROM, DEI messaging starts on day one, said Cherizard in the roundtable.

“When people arrive for orientation, we already, as one of the key pillars of that orientation program, include DEI as a topic,” she said. “So, people understand ROM's expectations and ROM's stance on DEI, but also... we direct them towards online training, so that they're already starting with that common vocabulary, with that basic understanding of what we mean when we're talking about DEI.”

In addition, diversity and inclusion is wired into how people access information, according to Cherizard.

“We have what we call the ‘People Portal’ which is really focused on everything that employees might want to know about their employee journey [including] DEI and accessibility so people can go there for articles, for video training, for online training, for information in general,” she said.

“I mean, ROM is absolutely on a journey, and there's a lot of priority put on making DEI part of how we work and collaborate every day.”

Canadian HR Reporter’s 5-Star DE&I Employers list for 2025 shone a spotlight on companies leading the way in building inclusive, equitable, and supportive workplaces.

Employee feedback critical for HR

But it’s not all coming from HR: Employees are a valuable resource in providing feedback, says Awosedo.

“A lot of information that they share with us has then built out programs,” she said, citing as examples mentorship and leadership development.

 “And then also just building on our employee resource groups. That too came from our frontline managers saying, ‘Hey, our people are asking for more intentional kind of community building within the organization,’” she said.

Their feedback has been critical to HR in leading these DEI programs, said Awosedo.

“I always say, ‘I can sit in this seat and really help to push that envelope, but I need the feedback to make sure it's actually resonating.’ And so without those leaders, I can say, pretty factually, we would not be as ahead as we are today without their feedback.”

Hansen agrees that staff reactions are key.

“If we don't get the feedback, then we don't know if we're hitting the mark... the whole point is to get everybody feeling safe and that they belong and are valued. And if we're not getting the feedback, then we're not doing our job,” she said.

Surveys are part of that reality check at ROM, according to Cherizard, citing an employee survey that was done in 2025 after a few years’ absence.

“One of the areas, of course, was around DEI and people providing that feedback. And what we've seen is that that has sparked other conversations within teams as people are getting the results for their teams and implementing action plans.”

Managers want tools, not slogans

As employees demand and expect a more “on-the-ground, realistic, authentic” approach to DEI, managers are also looking for tools that are more practical, that they can integrate into their everyday interactions with employees, said Cherizard — “instead of having something that's completely separate.”

On that note, Awosedo says Toronto Pearson Airport has made some inclusive leadership training mandatory for leaders.

“We said, ‘You need to ensure you know how to have these conversations, what to say — words matter, intent versus impact.’ So, we tried to really build that into the business structure.”

Those frontline leaders are also key in creating a psychologically safe workplace, according to Hansen.

“Retail has a variety of challenges from a security perspective… And so ensuring that we're creating a psychologically safe place for our employees and our customers is critical and that certainly involves role modeling our values to create that place of inclusion.”

Protecting, embracing diversity data

Behind the storytelling and training sits a more delicate issue: identity data. But that information must be handled carefully.

Awosedo stressed the importance of confidentiality around its data: “We keep it really tight, to be honest — it's only myself, our CEO, and then of course our data managers who have the access.”

But Toronto Pearson Airport also shares aggregate data and an employment equity report every year, she said.

“We started really collecting our data in a more relevant and real way about four or five years ago. And it's been a really smooth trajectory,” said Awosedo. “We've really seen how getting this data has allowed us to build those programs that impact our employees positively.”

At the LCBO, it's important to have information so it can identify identity gaps, said Hansen. The organization also shares aggregate data in an annual DEI progress report.

“We leverage those insights to action plans in terms of ‘How do we continue to enhance our programs and our offerings?’”

For example, they rolled out a program to combat lower representation of women in leadership retail roles, despite a higher number of women in retail roles, said Hansen.

“This year, we launched a ‘Bloom’ program, which is a community of practice focused on development, mentorship and learning specifically for women in our retail organization.”

Self-identification guides DEI programs

The ROM went through a similar trust exercise when it ran its first demographic survey three years ago, according to Cherizard.

“It was the first time ever that we really were focusing on people self-identifying across the organization in a very structured way,” she said. “And in order to encourage and support participation — which was very high, it was over 70% — we really communicated a lot around that confidentiality, around who would see the actual responses, around how they would be shared with leadership, etc., in an aggregate way.”

Now, it's time to redo that exercise, she said.

“What we're hoping to do is to link it a little more closely with our next engagement survey or pulse survey so that people… don't have to worry, that they will actually continue to participate and self-identify and provide feedback specifically so that we can use in designing programs and in addressing certain areas that might be hotspots within the organization.”  

Diversity in leadership at ROM

When it comes to examples of innovative DEI at their organizations, each HR leader has a slightly different focus: leadership composition, accessibility and hiring targets.

ROM has gone after the composition of its leadership ranks, not just its entry-level workforce, because there has been less diversity there, according to Cherizard.

“We've implemented things like training on inclusive hiring, technology to support getting a very broad base of applicants from different areas, reaching out and partnering with organizations that are specifically attached to or focused on specific communities, specific aspects of diversity, and getting their support, using search firms and having that as a prerequisite so that they come to the table already, even in their proposals, with a very strong understanding of how important diversity is to us.”

These efforts have resulted in a visible change in the different types of candidates and leaders they’ve been able to recruit, she said.

Accessibility and hiring at Toronto Pearson, LCBO

Toronto Pearson Airport has been certified gold by the Rick Hansen Foundation for customers and is now working in employee spaces, said Awosedo.

“We want to ensure our built environment is just ready, regardless of your ability,” she said. “My goal is to have a workplace where whoever applies for the role doesn't need to ask for accommodation.”

That involves working on ensuring both the built environment and technology tools are accessible, said Awosedo, adding they are doing a full audit right now.

“The goal is to have a lot of this work done in the next two years before it becomes, let's say, mandatory compliance,” she said. “We're trying to get ahead of the game, do what's right versus what we just need to do.”

LCBO, for its part, has paired accessibility with hiring targets. Its “We Belong Here” program supports overall recruitment goals while increasing the employment of people with disabilities in stores and warehouses, Hansen said: “We've hired 180 employees across the province… it's certainly a good sign that people are feeling like they belong here as they're returning employees in our fixed-term and casual space.”

DEI: ‘It’s a marathon, not a sprint’

But HR leaders should know that none of this happens at sprint pace and leaders who expect overnight change are setting themselves up to fail, according to Awosedo.

“We live in a world that is so fast-paced — everyone wants immediate actions,” she said. “When I'm leading inclusion initiatives, I like to say, ‘It's a marathon, it's not a sprint.’ These small, intentional steps we take each day will get us to the finish line in a really real and impactful way.”

It may not change overnight, and that's OK, she said.

“As long as the intention’s there to get to the finish line in a really impactful and positive way, then the work you're doing daily is worth every sleepless night, every meeting, every board paper you write.

“It's going to be worth it when your employees show up and you see that they feel they're a part of the fabric.”