Agenda

Day One: Tuesday, September 26, 2023

11:00 EDT

45 min

Hiring for Diversity to Meet Long and Short-Term Goals

Committed to a culture that seeks to attract, retain and develop a high-performing, diverse, and collaborative workforce what steps are effective in hiring to meet long and short term goals?

  • Commitments toward specific goals by 2025
  • Processes for connecting with, interviewing, and hiring a diverse set of individuals through understanding and valuing different backgrounds and opinions
  • The importance of intersectional recruitment that focuses on more than just gender or race
  • What are the challenges?
  • Understanding sources of bias
  • How do you deal with the barriers?
  • Principles of inclusive recruitment
  • What works?

11:45 EDT

45 min

Equitable Employee Development to Empower Each and Every Employee

What good is ramping up hiring for underrepresented groups only to bucket them into entry-level positions with no opportunity to advance?

  • Barriers to career progression
  • Socioeconomic factors as part of marginalized employees’ day-to-day experience
  • The value of “equitable” rather than equal employee development
  • 4 Ways your organization can ensure it is providing all employees with access to growth opportunities

12:30 EDT

60 min

Break

13:30 EDT

45 min

Leverage Technology to Achieve DEI Goals

Technology can play a role in gathering actionable data and input from staff to identify and eliminate biases in recruitment and pay scales. Topics covered include:

  • Embedding DEI tech into processes and business goals to achieve full integration
  • Measuring the effectiveness of organizational initiatives and strategies
  • Leveraging tech to overcome hiring biases and pay inequity

14:15 EDT

45 min

Data as an Equity Imperative: Build a Culture of Diversity & Inclusion Using Data

  • Why data is the key to progress
  • The step by step gameplan
  • Understanding the data
  • Potential flaws in self -identification
  • Disaggregation
  • Employment and Pay Equity Acts – what’s missing?
  • Vendor diversity
  • Using data for impact

15:00 EDT

15 min

Break

15:15 EDT

45 min

Create an Inclusive Benefits Strategy to Meet the Needs of Your Organization’s Diverse Workforce

The four step process

The need to ask employees what’s actually important to them

Importance of the total reward statements to show an employee the monetary value of benefits

Insights into market practices across the following areas:

  • Ethnicity/race/third-party nationals/refugees
  • General inclusive benefits strategy
  • Inclusive family planning
  • LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) benefits
  • People with disabilities
  • Pregnancy-related care
  • Preventative care
  • Mental health
  • Multi-generational workforce

16:00 EDT

45 min

Intercultural Assessment

  • Defining intercultural competence and intercultural sensitivity
  • Attitudes and behaviour related to intercultural communication
  • Awareness of cultural biases, values and assumptions
  • Knowledge of other cultural norms, communication styles and beliefs

16:45 EDT

End of Day One

Day Two: Wednesday, September 27, 2023

10:15 EDT

45 min

Opening Doors for Under-represented Groups Across All Diversities: Does Your Organization Reflect Your Community?

Find out how these leaders are opening doors in the municipal context

  • Systemic barriers, stereotypes and biases as barriers to women’s participation in local government
  • What FCM is doing to make municipal councils more representative of the communities they serve
  • Tools, practices and initiatives
  • The municipal tool kit

11:00 EDT

45 min

Creating an Inclusive Workplace for Indigenous Employees: Workplace Management and the Traditional Clan System

  • Examine how the clan system is relevant to modern organizations.
  • How to use traditional knowledge as the starting point for workplace management.
  • Explore the conflicting views of institutional Human Resources and the First Nation experience.
  • Learn how traditional knowledge can guide and support organizational change.

11:45 EDT

45 min

The Intersectional Experience of Black Muslims in the Workplace: New Research to Inform Policy, Programs & Future Advocacy

Key features and experiences of the Black Muslim population, including demographics, housing and home life, immigration, education, employment, income and activities

  • Comparing the experiences of the Black Muslim population to other groups in Canada
  • Applying an intersectional lens to the realities of Black Muslim women and individuals of different ages.

12:30 EDT

60 min

Break

13:30 EDT

45 min

Challenges Facing Under- Represented Groups and How Businesses Benefit From Inclusion Practices

  • Why increasing gender and broader diversity at the board and senior leader level is critical
  • How to encourage the needed change
  • Why a seat at the table is important for Black women and Black entrepreneurs
  • Importance of developing succession plans and supporting Indigenous people to get into leadership roles
  • Role of mentorship and support

14:15 EDT

45 min

Using Technology to Develop a Sense of Belonging in the Hybrid Workplace

  • How technology can impact work culture and employee experience
  • How tech can overcome barriers to engagement and support work culture and employee experience in a hybrid workplace
  • Effectively monitoring development, engagement, and productivity with listening, career path and coaching platforms
  • Developing a personalized approach to create a sense of belonging and purpose

15:00 EDT

15 min

Break

15:15 EDT

45 min

Building a Psychologically Safe and Inclusive Workplace: A Mental Health Journey

  • Bell Let’s Talk promoting mental health awareness.
  • Four key pillars:
    • fighting the stigma,
    • improving access to care,
    • supporting world-class research
    • leading by example in workplace mental health.
    • insights on Bell’s workplace mental health strategy
  • overview of its program,
  • the application of the National Standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace,
  • metrics the company is using to measure progress and the program’s continuous evolution.
  • Have we given employees the space, tools and bandwidth to have meaningful conversations?
  • Is the conversation continuing?

16:00 EDT

End of Day Two