Now that you have determined the need to hire your leader, you need to recruit them and fill the role.
You should first start by asking yourself where you will source and recruit your talent from.
Based on this, you can implement the right mechanisms to ensure that all individuals are set up for success within your recruitment process.
You can and should first turn inwards if you have an internal pool of candidates that meet the qualifications required. If not, you will need to source the candidate through external channels.
1. What qualifies an internal candidate to be a successful leader in this role?
2. Are the skills and criteria I am looking for achievable by all internal candidates?
3. What process am I engaging in to fill this role internally? Is this process equally available to everyone?
4. Am I ensuring that the leader will bring in diverse perspectives currently not present on my leadership team?
5. Am I ensuring to use a uniform and consistent interview guide that assesses all candidates equally?
The first point of contact for a prospective candidate with an organization is through the Job Description and Employment Posting. This sets the tone and establishes your brand perception as an organization.
Applicant Screening is a critical step through which candidates enter or are unable to enter the recruitment pipeline and subsequent next steps.
The interviewing process is what determines which candidates receive an employment opportunity in your organization, and can be heavily influenced by biases.
Whether a candidate receives an offer or not, the candidate experience during recruitment is critical to ensuring the candidate feels comfortable and has a lasting positive impression of your organization.
It is important to ensure that your hiring manager is educated and aware on their role to mitigating bias during the recruitment process.
When recruiting and providing an offer to a candidate, your organization must play a role in pay equity and reducing pay discrepancies.
Research from Bloomberg in 2020 indicates that Canada’s banking industry falls behind Canadian national progress with regards to EDI. At most Canadian banks, over 33% of staff identify as non-white, yet only 10% of senior executive roles and 8% of non-executive board positions are held by Racialized, Black and/or People of Colour individuals.
Recruit intentionally and with EDI in mind. Historically, Canadian banks and financial institutions have recruited from the same pools of talent, hindering the advancement of priority group talent.
Consider the following:
Organizations operating in Northern Canada often find it difficult to attract and recruit talent from priority groups, as the majority of talent tend to live in metropolitan, urban areas.
Consider the following:
According to Restaurants Canada, EDI considerations bring economic, operational, and morale benefits to the business. The food services sector is a leader in providing opportunities to priority group candidates.
Consider the following:
Now that you have hired your leader, your next step is to help them grow within your organization.
Mentorship fosters a sense of belonging and ensures your leaders are able to learn from others on how to be successful within their role.
It is critical that mentorship is offered equally to everyone, and that the mentor opportunities cater to the unique identities of all leaders.
Formal mentorship opportunities are organization-developed programs that provide employees with the tools to enhance their leadership capabilities.
The 2020 People of Colour in Tech report demonstrated that less than 5% of the workforce for large technology companies are composed of Black, Latinx and “Aboriginal” and/or Indigenous tech professionals. Employees of Colour find it difficult to access mentors, and Black employees reported it 62% more difficult to find a mentor than white respondents.
Priority group employees in the technology sector often do not see many leaders who look like them, and struggle to progress within the organization due to a lack of exposure.
Consider the following:
According to a 2022 report from the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, women are well represented in employment in Atlantic Canada, consisting of approximately 50% of the workforce. Racialized, Black and/or People of Colour however only account for about 1 in 20 workers. The report also indicated that Black employees specifically are less likely to be promoted to manager and leader roles.
Consider the following:
In addition to training, there are several other ways your organization can support the growth and development of your leaders.
The ocean sector is lagging behind in attracting a diverse labour force as opportunities in this industry are not highly visible due to their niche, technical training and hiring processes.
To improve inclusion of women and/or non-binary individuals within the sector, consider the following:
According to a report from Osler, in 2021, only 15% of Executive Officers and 17% of Board Members identified as a woman in the Life Sciences Industry, ranking as the smallest percentage from 13 industries.
Diversity in healthcare is important to ensure equitable healthcare outcomes for staff and patients as well.
Consider the following:
Offer an “opt-out” option for selection for leadership roles, so that all qualified candidates are automatically within the pool of candidates. Candidates can choose to exclude themselves if they like, rather than putting the accountability on employees to raise their hand
Explicitly highlight your organization’s value statement for equity, diversity and inclusion within job descriptions
Engage with alternative screening tools such as personality assessments, which are skills-based and free of identifiers. This will support the development of a more diverse workforce.
Scotiabank recognized the need to remove barriers from its talent acquisition process, specifically during applicant screening. The organization made the bold decision to remove resumes entirely from its process, and pilot this initiative within its Digital Factory team.
The organization decided to partner with Plum, a talent assessment platform that measures a candidate’s personality, social intelligence and problem-solving capabilities. Candidates received a match score, which indicated all of the roles that they would be a strong fit for.
As a result of this initiative, Scotiabank saw a 60% increase of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour candidates within its hiring intake, and a 50% increase of women within its hiring cohort.
McMaster Museum of Art launched a curatorial mentorship program, pairing Black, Indigenous and People of Colour art professionals with a senior curator.
Through this mentorship program, senior museum staff can guide the mentee through key activities to help them become leaders within the arts community.
Cater mentorship programs for specific priority groups to allow junior staff to see leaders “who look like them” and with whom they can relate
Elders in Residence is a program that can be developed where Indigenous leaders can provide counsel to employees from a holistic Indigenous perspective
HP Canada recognized the opportunity to increase visibility and promotion of female and underrepresented talent in technical and leadership roles.
The organization launched its Catalyst@HP program, where senior-level executives serve as Sponsors and commit to the growth and career advancement of their mentees. Each mentee is enrolled in an 18-month program focused on learning and development to gain key skills to succeed in leadership roles.
Since the first launch of the program, HP Canada has seen 78% of mentees from the program be promoted to new roles in the organization.
As part of LHSC’s Healthy Equity Strategy, the organization established a partnership with Atlohsa Family Healing Services in 2020. This partnership enables LHSC to offer an Indigenous Healing Services Advisor and provide a Sacred Space for Traditional Health Practices, Ceremony and Traditional Teaching.
This initiative was launched in response to two of the Truth and Reconciliations Commission’s Calls to action under healthcare.
Microaggression is defined as: “A comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group” – Source: Merriam Webster
Unlearning is defined as: “To make an effort to forget your usual way of doing something so that you can learn a new and sometimes better way” – Source: Cambridge Dictionary
Intersectionality is defined as: A framework for understanding how different aspects of a person’s social and political identities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, physical appearance, etc.) combine to create unique modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies advantages and disadvantages that are felt by people due to this combination of factors – Source: Kimberlé Crenshaw, TIME
Privilege is defined as: “The unfair and unearned advantages individuals are granted for having, or being perceived to have, social identities that align with those deemed to be superior according to societal rules and norms. It is often experienced as an absence of barriers related to a particular social identity (e.g., White privilege, straight privilege)” – Source: Egale
Safe Space is defined as: “A place intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations” – Source: Merriam-Webster
Safe spaces allow individuals to feel comfortable having brave and honest conversations.
Emotional Tax is defined as: “The combination of feeling different from peers at work because of gender, race, and/or ethnicity, being on guard against experiences of bias, and experiencing the associated effects on health, well-being, and ability to thrive at work” – Source: Catalyst
Tokenism is defined as: “Performative policies that ostensibly promote diversity or equality (placing women or diverse groups in leadership positions), but do not truly have a positive impact on the workplace. Tokenism isn’t progressive, and it especially causes harm to tokenized individuals, causing extra pressure to succeed due to being perceived as representative of a group and often leaving them in an alienating work environment” – Source: Catalyst
Psychological Safety is defined as: “An environment that encourages, recognizes and rewards individuals for their contributions and ideas by making individuals feel safe when taking interpersonal risks. A lack of psychological safety at work can inhibit team learning and lead to in-groups, groupthink and blind spots” – Source: Gartner
