Triggered by the 2020 racial tensions and political environment, we realized that employees were not having productive or constructive conversations about difficult topics, and that these conversations either didn’t take place or escalated. We also realized that as a company we can take part in driving a shared sense of ownership and allyship to drive further equality, inclusion and belonging for everyone. Progress on these areas start with an ongoing focus on building awareness and knowledge of the inequality or other issues that underrepresented groups face and build foundational skills.

In 2020 we implemented 2 learning initiatives and in 2021 we will implement 5 learning initiatives that are focused on diversity, equity and inclusion for underrepresented groups and all of them focused on one of the following:

• Knowledge and education about the inequalities or issues that underrepresented or minority groups face.
• How employees can show up as supporters or allies for underrepresented or minority groups in the workplace and in broader society
• How to have conversations about difficult topics and how to manage and approach disagreements or conflicts

100% of the employees completed the 2 mandatory initiatives in 2020 and for 2021 we are in active planning stages to create topics and content for the 5 planned learning initiatives. We are working with Employee Resource Groups, learning & development professionals and internal and external subject matter experts on the creation and delivery of the learning initiatives.

We measure how employees feel about the level of inclusion the workspace (i.e. “is my perspective heard”) and we measure employee engagement overall. Both have increased throughout 2020 and remained consistently very high. At a higher level, we feel through these learning initiatives, employees become more aware of their biases and learn the tools and skills to be a supporter and ally for others, which ultimately drives more inclusion, equity and belonging for all.

Richard Arts