Measuring inclusion matters more than ever, says expert
At a time when the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) movement is taking hits, many Canadian law firms are failing to adequately measure or sustain their DEI commitments, according to a recent report.
“A lot of the firms that we started auditing for racial diversity had not done their own audits,” says Pako Tshiamala, founder of consultancy firm Blink Equity, in talking with Human Resources Director Canada.
"You can't commit to DEI as principles, as values if you're not able to do something as simple as a demographic audit and an inclusion survey to make sure that folks who historically felt underrepresented actually feel included within your workplace.”
Firms that measure DEI tend to have more diversity than firms that take the “Let's do what we can, but not really measure it” approach, he says.
“The lack of an industry standard to measure makes people approach diversity as not really a KPI thing – although the business case is made for it.”
"Reverse discrimination" lawsuits are one of the reasons employers are committing less to DEI, according to a previous report.
According to Blink Equity, Ontario law firms are still hiring far too few racialized workers, based on their survey of 36 law firms with 50 or more lawyers in the province.
The consulting firm assigns a Blink Score to represent the ratio of how many racialized lawyers a firm has compared to its total lawyer population. If a firm has a total lawyer population of 100 and 20 are racialized, they will have a Blink Score of 20%.
It found that the average score is 16% for the overall lawyer population (partners, counsel and associates) at law firms, with minimum values at 6% and peak values at 27%.
When looking only at senior-level representation (partners and counsel), the average Blink Score is much lower at 10%, with some firms having 0% racialized representation at the senior level.
Tshiamala notes that some firms scored over 25% in the senior category, “which mirrors statistics for the racial makeup of the Canadian population”.
However, even among firms that score high on racialization, the score is “incredibly low” when it comes to the representation of Black lawyers, he says.
“We're talking below 2%.”
“It shows that the representation is alarmingly low, and more work needs to be done to not only recruit folks from that community, but also retain them.”
This is not an issue of low supply, he says.
“If you look at the number of lawyers who are represented in terms of the legal snapshot that the Law Society publishes, or if you look at the number of law school students that are graduating, you have enough racialized lawyers to have representation at the largest law firms in Ontario.”
Diverse hiring also makes sense for these employers as law firms that put focus on diversity have an advantage over the ones that don’t, says Tshiamala.
“You'll see firms that actually look at this as a strategic investment, something that makes sense for the business and can lead to higher productivity.”
That’s true “especially because clients are requesting that now,” he says. “They want to see themselves represented in legal services that they retain.”
Google is ending its diversity hiring targets in the wake of US President Donald Trump's orders to curb DEI initiatives, according to a previous report.
Despite the low diversity numbers at Ontario law firms, Tshiamala sees some cause for positivity.
“The fact that the average Blink Score for junior and mid-level positions (associates) is 27%, much higher than the overall average score and the senior level score, may suggest that some firms recognize that there is a representation problem, and are making efforts to change this,” he says.
One way law firms can improve their numbers is by focusing on retention, he says.
“We need to get better at retaining employees. And we need to understand that a strategy to retain employees that value high pay is not the same strategy to retain employees that value a workplace that has a strong culture where they can bring their whole selves to work.”
For these employers, it’s important to have programs that don’t just address one point,
Tshiamala says.
Diversity needs to be “a value-based cultural and corporate identity,” he says.
A majority of Black Canadians believe their employers have made meaningful progress toward workplace equity over the past five years, but challenges remain, according to a previous survey from KPMG in Canada.
