Creating workplaces that work requires a focus on individuals and systems. This episode features Debbie Burke-Benn, an award-winning ‘Authentic Leader’ with a passion for inclusion and vast experience in leading organizational change across various settings, sectors and continents. She delivers helpful insight on disrupting the status quo and both engaging and leveraging the strengths of diverse employees to boost innovation and better serve the public. Hear how “the why” in diversity and inclusion work is often more difficult to capture than “the how.”
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Making Diversity Work – Moving Beyond Paper
What Do Our Clients Want From Us
The OBA’s Not Another Decade initiative will soon offer a custom-built report card for assessing organization’s EDI plans. Contact media@oba.org to learn more.
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Charlene Theodore: Hello, and welcome to the Work that Works podcast. I'm your host, Charlene Theodore. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that I'm recording this episode from the Dish With One Spoon Territory. I'm grateful to the original owners for taking care of this land, and I recognize the trees that govern it. Knowing that our listeners span the country and are tuning in from other areas with their own treaties and unceded territories, I encourage you to continue learning more about the indigenous history in your community. It is important history and a story that continues.
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Charlene Theodore: We know that a workplace that is reflective of its diverse client pool, delivers more innovative service and app solutions, but it also builds critical confidence and community ties in an increasingly multicultural society. Given that fact, what best practices can we undertake to embed inclusion into our organizations that will improve our own efforts to engage and earn the trust of a diverse population? I'm OBA President, Charlene Theodore, and this is the Work that Works podcast.
I'm delighted to have with me today an organizational development specialist with vast experience in the public sector who has led inclusion and diversity overhauls in large and complex service-driven organizations. Debbie Burke-Benn is an award-winning authentic leader with a passion for inclusion who is going to give us the benefit of her 20 years of groundbreaking change management experience within a variety of sectors and settings. I'm keen to hear her insights into adopting inclusive practices and creating cultural change that will leverage the strengths of diverse and dedicated employees, benefit our bottom line, and better serve the public interest. Welcome, Debbie. Thanks for joining us.
Debbie Burke-Benn: Thanks very much for having me, Charlene. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you.
Charlene Theodore: So what I want to talk about first is in leading inclusion and diversity and really culture change strategy, you've played a key role in embedding inclusion within massive organizations. What are some of the challenges that you faced in spearheading those efforts and how did you tackle them?
Debbie Burke-Benn: So I've worked in many organizations and in many different sectors, and I've played a role voluntarily in large organizational change. And I've done so in Canada, in the Caribbean and on the continent of Africa, which are all different experiences. But after leading this type of work in several different organizations, the overarching challenge that I see is that the systems in place in our society and different organizations are established to replicate themselves, and have successfully done so for hundreds of years.
So, for example, hundreds of years ago, European men wore pants and jackets, and pants and jackets were seen as leaders, so let's call leaders pants and jackets folks. Very little has changed in my mind in 2021, who seem to be a leader and/or competent is still the pants and jackets crowd. I believe this example is an extension of why it is challenging to create workplaces that are diverse and inclusive. I think that one could enter the room, and I could use an example, wearing a wrap, and have the same or more qualifications than the pants and jacket folks, but the system cannot get passed a wrap to see qualifications and competence.
So in my mind, that's the challenge. It's a system that is replicating itself and therefore has a really hard time identifying the things that need to change to interrupt those replication.
Charlene Theodore: In listening to your response, the first thing that came to my mind is the, certainly as a North American challenge, in terms of black women in leadership and the biases that come with us wearing our natural hair in whatever way we see fit. I think it was only in 2020 that the U.S. passed the CROWN Act that dealt with discrimination and hiring based on natural Afro hair. And so, that's, I think, one current example that hearkens back to the early way which the systems were set up.
One thing that I unfortunately encounter in some of my work is a cultural inertia, or analysis paralysis and this just resistance to change, sometimes based on a denial that a problem exists, and sometimes, more often, people just not wanting to have the necessarily difficult conversations that are a substantial and impactful cultural change in workplaces. Were you ever confronted with this type of cultural inertia or resistance? And if so, how did you overcome that in your work?
Debbie Burke-Benn: When you talk about inertia, I think that the inertia is about leaving it to individuals to change systems that are not willing to be changed. I think that what's needed to change systems are disruptors. Systems fight against disruption. So disruptors often become part of the problem, for example. The systems encourages, and more importantly, rewards status quo thinking. So if you're a disruptor trying to change a system that is resistant, you become part of the problem, if you know what I mean. So I think that part of the inertia is that we leave it to individuals to make changes, and systems are way bigger than individuals and can wear down individuals easily because they're fighting giants.
Charlene Theodore: My takeaway from that makes me think about some of the topics I discuss with regards to something a lot of people call ERGs or employee resource groups. And essentially, they are networks, formal or informal, of employees who have shared lived experience, that I believe are meant to be there for networking support within the workplace specific to their experience. Ultimately, it's a tool for management in as much as they don't have that lived experience to identify key individuals for leadership promotion and to support those groups of employees in the workplace.
What I think the topic of conversation now has become is, how do we find that balance between actually doing the work that is a management function? Because I do believe if you are management, CEO, supervisor in any capacity, if you have the capacity to hire, fire or affect the lived experience of employees in your workplace, you have to get equality, diversity and inclusion right. It's just part of the job. It's not a side project anymore. And what we see is often examples of offloading that work, all of the work to your black associates' committee or your women's committee, or your LGBTQ+ committee, or your indigenous committee.
And it's really, I think, about knowing the importance of being able to have those spaces, but also finding that balance and making sure that that cultural change and the decisions that are made at the governance table and in strategic planning are properly resourced and assigned to people that actually have the power to do that work. Have you encountered any of those experience or have to deal with that in any of your work? And what do you think about that balance?
Debbie Burke-Benn: I feel that employee employment groups who have lived experience are really important. Again, I think we're relying on individuals to make systems changes. And individuals who, I think, that a system that likes to replicate itself doesn't like to hear about things that are difficult to do. And I think employment groups can provide the information, but the information needs to be received by leadership, as you said, as something that's necessary and required to do.
It's like Toni Morrison has this one line in her Bluest Eye that I always remember. It says, "It's easy to talk about the how; it's harder to understand the why." And so people go right to, "Well, how do we ensure that there's equity in organizations without really getting into why do we need to ensure that there's equity in organizations?" And I think that people with lived experience can really generate the why because they're being impacted by the systems and the practices on a day-to-day basis. And I think many organizations in all sectors and sizes may want to do the work, but the level of effort required is not necessarily understood or something that people are willing to continue deliberately.
Charlene Theodore: We've also spoken before about how making rules in the workplace might change the way people act but not the way that they think. When you're trying to foster really genuinely inclusive workplaces, how do we drive behavioral and cultural transformation through that balance of policy and process improvement, and also changing perspective?
Debbie Burke-Benn: We need both individuals, institutions, and structures to be impacted consistently to change culture in an organization that becomes more equitable. So creating policies and processes that ensure everyone thrives in an organization is absolutely essential. I think you have to hold leaders and decision-makers in the organization accountable. The policies and processes are not useful without accountability. For example, we create a speed limit on the highway because we know that there's science that says that certain speed limits create more harm. At the same time, we hold people accountable to that speed limit. We have people who are enforcing it. Of course, if you didn't have those accountabilities and enforcements, then people would drive at the speed that they wanted to in their daily life because it was just easier.
Charlene Theodore: I know I certainly would.
Debbie Burke-Benn: Yeah. So it's the same thing with... I don't actually think this is rocket science. I think it's the same thing with equitable policies and processes and behaviors, that we need to hold people accountable to changing their behavior. Some people, the speed limit works for changing behavior and some people it doesn't work, but they know their ramifications and there's accountability measures if they don't adhere to this. If people actually looked at equity as a system that needs to be enforced and people need to be held accountable for, we'd actually have some genuine changes in the workplace.
Charlene Theodore: I do think that out of the myriad of things we have to do to achieve structural change in workplaces with respect to EDI, and I think that this discussion is one of the things that we're talking about now in law and it's about that accountability measure. If there is no accountability, you're not necessarily going to see those results or see the results as quickly as you need. And the fact that our industry has been focused on this change, but in light of the events that we all saw this summer, I think is evidence that we haven't been making changes fast enough.
And so the topic that I think is an emerging one in our industry is having your EDI, whether they're targets or performance measurements or some kind of benchmark, having that actually folded into what your compensation looks like, what your bonus looks like, having that as part of your measurement of performance, I think is an emerging topic and I think now is the time that people are most open to talking about it. Have you in your work ever had to address these issues in terms of when we talk about accountability and incentive, making diversity benchmarks, whatever they may be, tying them to compensation?
Debbie Burke-Benn: I have worked in a workplace where diversity and inclusion was part of the compensation model for leaders. And from my experience, it was one of the workplaces where you could see the growth around diversity and inclusion. It was just like you said, part of the compensation model just like delivers or encourages people or whatever the other factors are that people put in place, having a diverse and inclusive team was part of the compensation model. And I believe that people respond to financial rewards around creating inclusive and diverse workplaces.
Charlene Theodore: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, because what I like to say and what I try and say as often as possible on this podcast is that there are so many tools in the toolbox and that you need to pull out and use strategically on your path to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization. And I think the real skill is knowing what all the tools are, and when and how to implement each one in concert as you move along that path. For our listeners I'll say, you cannot have just only attach EDI outcomes to your bonus structure for your senior partners or senior associates or other managers in the workplace and not have a surrounding structural context to give them the supports they need to do their job.
But I do think that in all of the things that we're doing, there is lots and lots and lots of education without that corresponding. "Take this education and actually do something. And here's how we're going to incentivize you to do it. And here's how we're going to hold you accountable if you don't do it." I'm wondering, because you've been in this field for so many years, have you started to see a shift in that area?
Debbie Burke-Benn: Well, I think there might be a shift in understanding, like you have said, that education is just the beginning of the conversation. I'm a big believer in education. I, after many years of doing this work in many sectors, I think that the challenge is that we focus on the wrong things when we educate people. Now we focus on racism and anti-racism, and I think that that focuses on the victims of racism as opposed to focusing on systems that encourage and reward the same people over and over. And what has created the need for equity in workplaces, it's not that we have more racialized black and indigenous people working in workplaces. It's because they're there and systems have not changed to identify who is competent and who should be provided with opportunities to be promoted.
Over years and years, I see lots of data collection, both inside organizations and outside organizations that demonstrate over and over these factors of inequity. By collecting data, we believe that this is going to make changes in the organization, but the challenges that the analysis of the data is still within the system as opposed to what's happening with the systems that exist in the organizations and how are individuals operating those systems that continue to perpetuate the same outcomes?
Charlene Theodore: Yeah. So it's almost like, well, I was going to say speaking to large complex organizations, but I think when we're talking about resources, any organization can hire a third party to look at their data, to understand their data collection and analysis process from a privacy perspective. By way of example, internally, if you're looking at your data and you can say, "Oh, women are hiring and promotion and retention of women is up ever since we put in place this new communications and marketing plan about parental leave and opportunities to stay engaged and come back and really reassuring people that it is not a detriment to your career."
But if you don't take that data, maybe a third party would take that data and say, "Okay, well, you want to be able to dive a little deeper into that because in this group of women, how many women are succeeding that are racialized? Are your black, indigenous or otherwise racialized women still clustered in middle management?" That's a very good point. That possible blind spot that you may have in using your own data to advance change.
Debbie Burke-Benn: And also, like with systems, we look at hiring systems and recruitment systems and talent management system, right? But what we don't look at are the informal systems. Within those particular processes and practices, there's lot of informal things that go on. For example, in some large organizations that I've worked in, and even in smaller organizations, actually, there's this idea that people will come forward and say, "I'm ready for an opportunity." And there's a recruitment process. And the recruitment process is used when the organization will say something like, "Well, you've never done the role before."
And that is usually used against racialized people because it's a way of not providing them with opportunities. Whereas other folks in the organization, Caucasian people, are given the opportunity to fail forward. So they're given informal opportunities to take on roles that they've never done before so that they can have an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to do that role. So if we're looking at formal recruitment and formal hiring without looking at those informal ways that people get ahead, we're missing a whole bunch of practices that are creating inequities. And I think that that is something that if we just look at regular "processes," we're going to miss a lot of those underlying system processes that create barriers.
Charlene Theodore: I know that you're someone who's led big change management processes, and I wonder if you can give me just some of the basic tools and indicators that will let you know that you're on the right path from idea to full-scale implementation. Because what I truly believe is whether you're a Debbie that's working in a large organization, or you're a small practice in Northern Ontario that wants to do let's say perhaps more outreach to the indigenous bar, when we break it down to what the fundamentals look like, we can all take some lessons from that.
Debbie Burke-Benn: I think there's the continuum from understanding to checking in with myself on a daily basis and with the people that I lead or I serve that what I'm doing is inclusive. So I think there's a broad continuum. And I think there's a lot of points in between because it's a growth, it's not an event, right? That's what some organization make this mistake. They think they hold this one event, it's a training event and then we're done for the next 10 years or whatever. There's a continuum of learning and understanding. Where we are today took hundreds of years to get to and to reinforce particular ways of thinking that it's not going to be undone in one event.
But your most important question that you asked when you just said is like, how do we know we're on the path, that we're actually making the movement? And I think that I've worked in organizations where ultimately the goal is to make sure people, everyone as a leader, everyone in your organization feels that their contribution is valued. I think that if people felt that way, then if they wanted to be promoted, they would be thinking, "This is a place that values my contribution, and if I want to grow, I'm going to be encouraged to grow and I'm going to be supported to grow no matter what I look like." So you check in with people.
I think that how people feel about the organization from a cultural perspective, and I think I read this somewhere once, is within 50 feet of their leader's desk. And so you check in with people about how they feel in that organization. You are the face of the organization and if you make people feel the humanity of who they are and that they're being treated with dignity and respect and that they're valued, then they will give you leverage to make the mistakes that we're going to make along that inclusion and diversity pathway.
Charlene Theodore: So important.
Debbie Burke-Benn: In my mind, it's like checking in with people about how they're feeling, and listening to people who feel like the other, because they actually are the ones that will tell you how you're doing. And how you do for those people who feel like the other, who are feeling the inequities, solve it for everybody. And listen, the worst thing is to go and tell someone in a position of power how you feel about something and feel unheard. That's why we stopped talking about it. Why we, in this day and age where people are like when the George Floyd thing happened, it's like, "I'm tired of talking about this. I'm tired of having my experiences needing to be regurgitated over and over in organizations or in the media or wherever." So you listen to those people, you make incremental changes based on what they're saying. You check in again, you make incremental changes, you check in again. It's not an event, and it's never going to be an event.
Charlene Theodore: Well, talking about events, when we don't do the work that you just described, it can end one of two ways. You're going to lose employees, right? There's going to be some type of public backlash, either on social media or in an actual protest, or you will find yourself in court before the Human Rights Tribunal, or in the labor context, before an arbitrator in collective bargaining. And my view on this is, look, if they were willing to put it on a placard and a protest sign, or they're willing to put it in their pleadings before a tribunal or court, they were willing to tell you. They can articulate and want to be heard. But the default is when we get to that place is that you did not provide the communication, the safe communication tools for feedback. And then of course, as you said, you didn't act upon that feedback.
So what I'd like to do is just maybe drill down into that communication piece. I believe that employers should have, depending on their size, of course, they should have multiple formats of communication so people can choose which one they feel safe participating in. So whether that's town halls, whether that's anonymous surveys done by a third party. At the OBA, we're having a ton of new board members, they're all different races, stages of practice, living all over Ontario. So we set up a board buddy system, and so if there was ever any question or doubt or something that you had with related to governance or you just wanted to chat and get to know the organization better, you know you have someone that you could go to. And of course, they can come to staff, they can come to me. What specific communication tools do you recommend in your work?
Debbie Burke-Benn: Well, in the past, I have recommended multiple types of communications, all of which you've spoken to. More important than the forum is the sincerity of wanting to hear. It's not performative. I've actually experienced some leaders who have continue to have town halls even when the conversation was difficult. And that generates so much trust from staff that, "This is not an easy topic." It is not easy for us who experience these inequities to be talking about it constantly because it's all around us. It may be very difficult for those people who don't experience inequities and are maybe traumatized alongside of us around when they hear about these inequities.
But a leader who continually listens and lets people articulate how they're feeling I think really helps with trauma. Not talking about it is really damaging. And I think that if I were to introduce other types of forum, one thing that I do a lot with my black female colleagues cross-sectors and in different organizations is that we're available for each other. When we're having a moment of crazy, we say, "I just need someone to talk to." Formalizing those opportunities for us to have conversations with each other so that we can acknowledge and validate our experiences is absolutely essential.
Charlene Theodore: So, Debbie, we've spoken on this podcast about the importance of research and evidence-based strategies, and we touched on this a little before, that come from looking honestly at what's going on in your organization. So, being aware that you can have a blind spot as to what's going on when you're looking at your organization, just as a whole or looking at your data. In attempting to really collect that group of information and feedback, have you seen some people lose sight of how emotional the topics of discrimination and exclusion are for those mostly effected?
Debbie Burke-Benn: I think that data is important, and I see people, and we can see externally as well where all the evidence in the data's there and people are still saying, "Yeah, but it's not racism." And I'm thinking because they're analyzing it from a particular perspective, it's very hard for folks to understand that within data analysis is also biased, right? The worst thing in my mind that an organization or a sector can do is to collect data and then to continue to behave the same way. That is where it's emotionally taxing for individuals, because it's like, "Okay, you said you wanted data, and now you have the data, but you don't believe the data." It's better not to collect, I always feel it might be better not to collect the data.
Charlene Theodore: I was going to say that and I didn't know if I should say it because it's like, I would never tell people not to collect data, but it, as they say, or as we say in our community, it hits different when you know you're going to collect the data and use that data to justify your continued practice of exclusion. That's a hard one, and it does happen.
Debbie Burke-Benn: Can I say that I am not a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a social worker, but I would bet that that kind of approach would create mental health challenges, because it's initially you didn't know, now you know but you don't believe it. And I'm still feeling this way. And it's like, where is the hope in that conversation?
Charlene Theodore: Yeah. Hope, I think, is the key word because it takes out the element of hope, right? If you are in an organization, so if I work for [Acme 00:28:12] Law Firm LLP and I see the things that have gone on since the summer, and I see everybody making statements, and I see people making progress and making mistakes in my sector. And we start this process, and whether it's because you don't believe the data or you haven't resourced your plan properly or any of number of the myriad of ways that an EDI strategy implementation can fail, what you're really doing is taking away that hope from your employees, your stakeholders, that things are going to change. And in this climate, that's a very, very... I don't even know the word. That could be a very, very damaging thing.
In law, we talk a lot about the importance of a profession that actually reflects the diverse public it serves. And so when I say in law, I'm talking about sole practitioners, academia, law professors, deans, and the bench, right? Judges. So based on your experience, how does diversity in service providers, which is fundamentally what we are, improve accessibility and effectiveness in responding to the needs of Canadians, wherever they may be?
Debbie Burke-Benn: So a diversity in service providers gives us an opportunity to see how diverse populations could be served and understood differently. So in my mind, asking people who are receiving your service how they feel about your service and then pivoting and acting on that information is essential to create equity in service. If you fix services for the most marginalized communities, how you interact with them, and I'll just use an example that's outside of my understanding, except I follow it: healthcare systems and how they've treated indigenous populations over the years. If you fix your service for the person who feels that you are not listening to them and you learn to listen to them, you start listening to everybody from their perspective. And we fix it for all of us in ways that we don't even know it needs to be fixed.
Charlene Theodore: I relate to it so closely for a couple of reasons. I do management and employee side work that part of my work comes from a labor background, right? And the little known or I wish the history of labor unions in this country were more broadly known, many of the workplace rights and protections that we enjoy today came from disenfranchised worker who started to form a union. So whether it's mat leave, whether it's weekends, the very concept of a weekend, whether it's workplace harassment, it was from the least of us for all of us. And I use another air quotes when I say least.
The other thing I take away from what you just said is while your experience comes from large, complex organizations, there is a really important takeaway for people that are sole practitioners, which is a lot of our population in the bar in Ontario. So you may think that, "Look, I don't have a workplace per se. It's me." Right? But who is your admin? Who's your secretary? Who are your vendors? Who are your processors? Who do you give business to? How do you interact with your community? Do you take on an articling or summer student? What is that process like? Who are you including? Who are you mentoring? And who are, more importantly, who are you not mentoring?
And I think for men who are not racialized, they need to think about engaging with women and racialized women on those areas, where again, like I said, you have the power, whether it's not about hiring or firing, but influence someone's career path or their lived experience at work. These are all areas where you can make a change. So I think that's a really, really important takeaway.
Debbie Burke-Benn: Absolutely. And we haven't really spoken about allies, but allies are absolutely essential in this work. And how we show up on a day-to-day basis is, from whatever place we are at, is extremely important.
Charlene Theodore: Yeah. And I got to say that that's the majority of our audience. They are allies who have the power to affect change in workplaces and this is one of the resources that they're using to guide them on the path to that change. I mentioned earlier, Debbie, that millennial lawyers, the new cohort of people that are forming the hiring pool are going to be the future of our legal workplaces. And so perhaps I'll end by asking you, what do you think that employers can do to create workplaces that work for the younger cohort of job seekers that capitalize on everyone's talents, ambitions, and values?
Debbie Burke-Benn: As far as I am concerned, young people are so smart, way smarter than I was at their age, and really understand their value in a way that I don't believe that I did. And particularly young black people and racialized people, they know their value and they want to feel like they're contributing in an organization. So organizations who don't think about creating spaces where young people are growing and thriving and they don't fix what needs to be fixed are going to be in trouble.
They are leaving organizations because they don't feel like their contributions and their value to the organization is... They're not experiencing that, and therefore, they will leave, find value elsewhere and large organizations, small organizations, sole proprietor who hires someone will lose a lot of talented contributors. If people feel valued, they will do Herculean things. Whether they were the receptionist or the person who cleaned the organization, they felt that the people who ran that organization valued their contribution.
Charlene Theodore: Wow. I think that's a great note to end on, especially speaking about private practice law firms, right? These aren't fly-by-night businesses. It's not a startup that's kind of... They're looking to get taken over by a larger company. The great law firms that we have today in private practice, whether they're boutiques mid-size or large and international, they're multi-generational businesses, and that's what our listeners are trying to build. They are businesses that you want to survive beyond you. And so I think that that is such a great point. These are in effect the future leaders, and they will want to be within your workplace and establish their careers and thrive if you have the right setup to make it a workplace that works.
What I loved about this conversation with Debbie is how we were able to talk about EDI at both the micro and macro levels. Systems designed to replicate themselves that have dominated for hundreds of years are not easy to interrupt, but as long as there's buy-in from those at the top of our organizations, we can all play a role in disrupting the status quo and rebuilding a more inclusive workplace model. Employee resource groups and equality and inclusion committees provide insight from those with lived experience that is important leadership to hear so they understand why diversity is so important and feel compelled to act on their recommendations.
Leaders must be held accountable for EDI plans and their objectives. Behavior and culture won't change without demanding accountability from those who don't follow through on their commitment.
On the other side of that coin, incentives are important to effect lasting change. Remember what Debbie said about the organization she worked with that made creating diverse and inclusive teams part of the compensation model. The financial rewards produce discernible growth in diversity. Employers need to mete out consequences, incentives, and appropriate support to help their people perform this important work.
Education is just the beginning of the conversation and should focus at least as much on the imbalances and biases that are rooted in the system as it does on individual stories of discrimination or marginalization in the workplace.
Gathering data that identifies factors of inequity won't help advance change if it's being analyzed within an equitable system. You might need to enlist an outside perspective to overcome blind spots.
Disregarding or disbelieving your own data is incredibly taxing for the individuals who have offered their accounts of exclusion and experiences of being discounted in the workplace. Ignoring what they've told you is an approach that may well impact mental health.
When looking for gaps in inclusion, don't limit that examination to your formal systems like hiring, recruiting and talent management. You also need to take a look at your informal systems for advancement and assignment. Phrases like, "Well, you've never done this role before," is a claim often used against racialized employees to exclude them from opportunities, while white employees are frequently given the chance to fail forward and try out a role that might take them further in the organization. If you're not looking at those patterns, you're ignoring a slew of system processes that create barriers.
Organizational leaders should offer multiple types of feedback mechanisms with a sincere readiness to listen and act. Continuing to solicit input even when the conversation is difficult is a way for leaders to generate trust and support their people who may be experiencing profound challenges in the workplace, including racial trauma. Consider how you can validate and support employees through these experiences.
When developing forums for feedback, it's worth including some that use a virtual setting, as they may allow people a sense of safety, comfort, and even control in disclosing emotionally charged issues.
If you want to cultivate a culture of productivity, wellness, and inclusion, don't design policies based around one or two bad actors. Accept that the vast majority of people who are working for you want to perform well and contribute and back them with the trust and tools that will empower their success.
Lawyers are service providers who cater to the legal needs of diverse populations who will all experience their interactions with you differently. Asking people how they experienced your service and then acting on their input is fundamental to creating equity in service. As Debbie told us, if you fix services for the most marginalized populations you serve, you end up fixing them for everyone.
I think one of the most important pieces of wisdom that Debbie shared with us is that equality, diversity and inclusion is not a single event, whether that's training or a benchmark. Rather, it's a continuum of learning and understanding. The only way we know if we're on the right path is by checking in, listening, making incremental changes, and then checking in again. Any organization, no matter the size, can accomplish Herculean things when every person there feels valued, supported, and encouraged to grow.
You can find both the Ontario Bar Association, and me, your host, Charlene Theodore, on LinkedIn and on Twitter. Let's keep this conversation going.