Best Workplaces, Diversity & Inclusion
Great Place to Work® is pleased to announce the 2020 list of Canada’s Best Workplaces™ for Inclusion. To be eligible for this list, organizations must be Great Place to Work Certified™ in the past year and at least 90% of employees must agree they are treated fairly, regardless of personal characteristics (such as gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation). We determined the BEST based on employee responses to our Inclusion Index.
All people everywhere deserve to work in an organization where they trust their leaders, take pride in what they do, and enjoy their colleagues. More and more organizations realize that high-trust workplaces—where every employee’s potential is realized—are good for business and good for society. When there’s an authentic commitment to inclusion, fairness and trust-building throughout the organization, people can experience a positive workplace culture widely and consistently—not just in pockets, which is what we see in many other workplaces. Inclusive organizations are therefore better able to cultivate the human potential of all their people—and outperform their competitors.
A truly inclusive workplace is what we call a Great Place to Work For All.
This year’s Best Workplaces for Inclusion have gone the extra mile to ensure all employees feel supported, valued and included.
Everyone’s contributions count
An environment where everyone’s contributions count means each employee is valued for their contributions and each position contributes to the success of the organization, which leads to greater engagement collectively, as a team, than individually.
Ryan's new 'RyanInnovates' platform is an easy to access online portal that allows employees to view and make suggestions. The portal provides full visibility, lots of collaboration, and promotes positive, progressive, business-enhancing ideas. Each suggestion appears on a social media style platform that is visible as a Firm-wide news feed and employees are encouraged to "like" or "dislike" the suggestion. Ideas that achieve 25 "likes" regardless of "dislikes" are guaranteed to be considered by management and will receive a response.
At Reid’s Heritage Group, every job is vital to their success, so they have created the Jobservation (job shadowing) program to give team members an inside look into what their coworkers do. This builds appreciation and respect for other parts of the business, while also providing key insight into how each team member contributes to the strength and success of the Reid’s organization. This valuable investment in team member development increases team work, awareness, collaboration and business knowledge, and supports their Core Values.
Equal opportunity for advancement
Having equal opportunity for advancement means that only performance merits career advancement, the promotions process is open and transparent, and management takes steps to actively combat preferential treatment and challenge assumptions.
G Adventures recognizes that there are groups of individuals that inherently don’t receive the same opportunities when it comes to mentorship and growth, so they have created the Guidance Mentorship Program to address this. The objective is to foster intentional mentoring relationships to develop talent, provide growth opportunities, and broaden business understanding and networks. Through this program they are making an effort to call out their “like me biases” by matching individuals based solely on development goals and coaching strengths.
With every sales position posted at Stryker, they have a targeted recruitment strategy in place for increasing female sales talent. While every requisition possesses a diverse talent pool, with this strategy in place Stryker ensures that there is at least one female candidate presented to the interview panel amongst the top three candidates.
Differences are respected and honoured
In a time where hiring for culture fit is the norm, HR leaders need to consider what this means for diversity and inclusion. Hiring for fit means you recruit candidates that share the company values and have the aptitude to do well in your business setting. But it is important to ensure that hiring for fit does not mean hiring people just like ourselves. Giving employees the freedom to bring their full selves to work means that expression of individual personalities is encouraged, and there is no need to minimize a person’s differences or unique qualities to fit in. This attitude comes from the sincere belief that diverse backgrounds foster diverse ideas!
The Intuit Muslim Awareness Network helped others gain a better understanding of Ramadon by hosting a Fast-a-thon. Employees were encouraged to make a donation to The Daily Bread Foodbank in order to participate. Then, on May 8, those who signed up were asked not to eat or drink from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. to experience fasting. For many, it was enlightening and truly helped them to appreciate what their Muslim friends experience during Ramadan
At Edelman they believe employee networks are effective engines of change and are proud to have the Edelman Equal program. Led by staff, the mission of this initiative is to inspire a diverse and inclusive environment that enables LGBT employees to be their authentic selves and drive forward the firm’s business in an evolving global society. Specifically, the program aims to create an Edelman culture inclusive of the LGBT community, supporting Edelman business objectives by engaging LGBT talent and channeling knowledge/expertise to drive strategic priorities and revenue growth, and championing policies, benefits, and resources that are inclusive of the LGBT community, while also engaging the broader agency to drive understanding of relevant topics.
Inclusion drives innovation
New research from Great Place to Work shows that high-trust workplace cultures are seeing faster rates of success by inviting every employee into the innovation process. Innovation by All maximizes a company's human potential by tapping into the intelligence, skills, and passion of everyone, no matter who they are or what they do for the organization. Companies that build an Innovation By All culture generate more high-quality ideas, realize greater speed in implementation, and achieve greater agility—resulting in 5.5 times the revenue growth of peers with a less inclusive approach to innovation. Sign up here to read the full report.
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Register today to become Great Place to Work Certified™. Get recognized for the outstanding culture you’ve built or let us help you create a more productive work environment.
About our lists
Great Place to Work® publishes a series of Best Workplaces™ lists based on feedback from more than 300,000 employees at Great Place to Work Certified™ organizations across all industries in Canada. Employees complete an anonymous Trust Index© survey, answering questions about how frequently they experience behaviors that create a great workplace, including, the transparency of communication, degree of collaboration, quality of benefits programs, opportunity for professional development, and support for work-life balance. If 7/10 employees respond positively to the survey, the organization becomes Great Place to Work Certified™ for one year. Results from the survey are highly reliable, having a 95% confidence level with +/- 5% margin of error.
About Great Place to Work®
Great Place to Work® is the global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Through proprietary assessment tools, advisory services, and certification programs, GPTW recognizes the world's Best Workplaces™ in a series of national lists including those published by The Globe & Mail (Canada) and Fortune magazine (USA). Great Place to Work® provides the benchmarks, framework, and expertise needed to create, sustain, and recognize outstanding workplace cultures.
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