Project: DiversiTV - 5 Key Inclusive Behaviours Project - 2020 - present
Problem: An employee pulse survey at a Canadian organization revealed that many employees did not feel they could be their authentic selves at work. Diverse employees felt they were undervalued or excluded because of their physical, racial, gender, age, religious and/or language differences.
Context: Export Development Canada (EDC) is a Crown corporation dedicated to helping Canadian companies navigate, manage and take on risk to support their growth beyond Canada’s borders by providing financial solutions they need to succeed in global markets. Covid-19 took an economic toll on local businesses and EDC was mandated by the federal government to deliver a range of financial solutions to support struggling Canadian businesses (not just exporters). This represented a big change to the organization at an especially stressful time. Around the same time, racial division was playing out before our eyes in the cities and communities where we lived. In addition to the stressors of racial and political conflict in our country, we were also dealing with the stress and impact of a global pandemic and the stressors of being thrown into new roles and having new responsibilities.
An employee pulse survey was done around this time and diverse employees voiced their dissatisfaction and feelings of being discriminated and excluded in the workplace. The results of the survey were taken very seriously by the Leadership at EDC and EDC's CEO made it clear that we can do better and made Inclusion, Diversity & Equity (ID&E) one of the top corporate priorities in 2020 and over the next few years.
Process: In order to address this problem an Inclusion, Diversity & Equity (ID&E) Working Group was formed to develop and implement a strategic plan for embedding ID&E into EDC culture and "business as usual". As the Learning & Development Advisor, I wrote and began executing on a Learning & Development Strategy to support the larger corporate ID&E Strategy.
After a great deal of research into behaviour change, and effective workplace ID&E Learning initiatives, and taking into consideration the current social/political climate and the impact of the pandemic on individual employees, I decided to focus on a few impactful behaviours that could lead to the greatest change. These were validated and discussed with members of several Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) representing different "communities" of workers throughout EDC (LGBTQ2+, Young Professionals, Black Employees, Latin American Employees, Indigenous Employees, Employees with Disabilities, Women Employees and other self-identified communities and their allies) to help us understand the issues and effectively change the culture of the organization. We also engaged with a Coaching Community of Practice at EDC to gain their insight and experience to help support the Learning Strategy
The 5 Key Inclusive Behaviours were presented to employees in a series of 6 short animated videos that briefly explained WHAT the desired behaviour was, WHY it was important to the organization and individuals followed by HOW to demonstrate these behaviours at work.
Outcome: This project is still ongoing. The 5 Key Inclusive Behaviours are being reinforced in many ways throughout the organization, embedded into mandatory compliance training, added to performance measures for leaders and employees. We have held some coaching sessions with leaders and employees to discuss their questions and concerns about their interactions with their diverse colleagues. A leader's discussion guide was prepared to support leaders to have "safe" and supportive discussions on diversity with their teams.
A follow-up video game/assessment/evaluation is in development to gauge how well the learning was adopted and what areas we will need to continue to work on. The game will allow learners to practice the key behaviours in a virtual environment and see the impact of their choices on the characters they interact with in various workplace scenarios. We are using a "belonging meter" to show how different choices can make others feel more or less like they belong.
Also planned as supporting learning activities is a DiversiTV 15 Minute Movie Club (like a book club but to discuss ID&E-related videos) where a curated list of documentaries about diverse communities and individuals are viewed and discussed informally as an ongoing social/informal learning activity.
Another series of videos and mandatory eLearning modules are being produced to put the 5 Key Inclusive Behaviours in context specifically around different communities (LGBTQ2+ Awareness and the 5 Key Behaviours has already been produced and one is in development by the DiversABILITY Employee Resource Group to raise awareness on how to include and support employees with visible and invisible disabilities).
Partners: Export Development Canada (EDC) - Client, EDC's ID&E Working Group, Diverse Employee Resource Groups, EDC Marketing and Branding Team, Pondstone - external developer/animated video production.
Role/s: Learning Advisor, Researcher, Curriculum Designer, Project Coordinator, ID&E Working Group Liaison, Group Facilitator, Script Writer/Storyboard producer, Presenter/Trainer, Peer Coach/Mentor, Art Director/Designer.
This project started during lockdown which made it especially difficult to take an inclusive and collaborative approach to the design of the Learning Strategy. Because the project is about creating an inclusive culture in the workplace, there was no way to credibly develop the program without including diverse colleagues and impacted stakeholders in the design process. We leveraged available technology to be able to collaborate and discuss and used tools such as Slido (screen shots below) to ensure everyone had an opportunity to share their ideas and perspectives.
Initial engagement with representatives from the diverse Employee Resource Groups employed the use of anonymous polling software to allow participants to share with confidence and helped create the "safe space" needed to engage in open and honest dialogue.
The above 5 Key Inclusive Behaviours were identified through our engagement with the diverse Employee Resource Groups. We chose to describe these as actions to emphasize that we need to demonstrate the behaviours not just agree with them in principle.
One of the key challenges with this project was the fact that those whose behaviour most needed to change were the least likely to believe there was even a problem.
We leveraged real employee stories (good and bad) to raise awareness of the problem of exclusion and discrimination in our own workplace. People especially related to hearing their colleagues share their lived experiences and it helped people realize that their workplace experience may not be the same as that of their diverse colleagues. Employee Resource Group members have been especially generous in sharing their experiences and personal stories. This speaks to the level of trust we were able to establish with them through our engagement.
Each of the 5 Key Behaviour Videos explained WHY the particular behaviour is important or beneficial both on business and personal levels.
The above video is an example of the first of six short videos explaining the 5 Key Behaviours.
We found quotes about each of the 5 Key Behaviours from respected business people and leaders that reinforced and lent credibility to our campaign.
