The ongoing fight for acceptance of diversity and inclusivity in Canadian workforces is being noticed at a more public level, and yet firms are still reportedly lagging behind with reactive action. According to a report from Pride at Work Canada, a training platform educating businesses about the importance of an inclusive workforce, 85% of organizations have a designated diversity team on hand to deal with LGBT diversity mandates.
Furthermore, 63% of firms are have an LGBT guru at an Executive level, or higher; however, this is not necessarily being translated successfully across the wider organization. Speaking to HRD Canada, Colin Druhan, Executive Director of Pride at Work Canada, went on to emphasise the importance of HR championing greater inclusion in the workplace.
“I think the business case for greater inclusion is, at least, becoming more ingrained,” he explained. “There’s also lots of public support for diversity – which needs to be backed up with substantive, actual work. So many companies are very quick to signal how LGBTQ-friendly they are, but behind the scenes do very little to back this up in reality. We also see a lot of companies without specific trans or gender-diverse inclusion – they focus heavily on gay or bi inclusion, which is great in its own right, but there also needs to be more balance.”
And whilst there’s no denying how far we have come in the last few decades, with public and professional attitudes toward LGBT employees evolving massively, it’s evidently clear there is still a way to go.
“There’s no easy fix ‘silver bullet’” added Druhan, “but the first thing I would suggest to someone is to take a look around your workplace…Which groups are excluded? This should point to the gaps. Your next step would be to find those communities, ask them what specific barriers they are facing, ask them what you need to do to change. Pop the bubble you’re in.”
Colin Druhan will be speaking at HRD Canada’s Diversity & inclusion Masterclass, March 8th 2018. For more information on our speaker line up and agenda, click
here.
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