Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Canada is becoming increasingly more diverse, and this brings new opportunities and challenges to respond to. Employers and employees have the challenge of working in new ways with other team-members, of being part of an effective team where the members are unlike each other in race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, culture, language, generations or customs. Managers need to create an inclusive environment in which all employees understand, value, and respect each others’ differences. These opportunities and challenges remain the same with other stakeholders such as clients, customers and the community. This program is designed to address all these in an interactive session.

As diversity increases in the workplace, people from different backgrounds and orientations will integrate with the workplace culture and perform when they feel welcomed, safe and included to become a part of the organizational culture. The program is designed to create an interactive conversation to help understand what equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) means and how people from different backgrounds and cultures may experience it in their daily lives. It is acknowledged that there is no one perfect or certain approach to dealing with EDI. It is very much related to the existing leadership and organizational culture and what the organization aspires to be in meeting its goals. The program will be facilitated through a mindfulness lens with a focus on unconscious biases and possible systemic barriers to inclusion and equity.  The facilitator will encourage self-reflection and a compassionate inquiry into how to effect change, and overcome biases and barriers, so every member of the team is valued as a part of an inclusive culture. The program will be facilitated in an interactive co-inquiring manner encouraging participants to actively contribute to the learning process.

Equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (EDIA) are often promoted as essential concepts in Canadian society. However, we are rarely given the instruction needed to incorporate EDIA practices into our daily work. This course will discuss the importance of and methods for applying EDIA to our writing and document formatting. This will give participants concrete applicable instruction for incorporating inclusive language and accessible formatting techniques into anything they set out to write.