Here at Carnelian Web Services, we believe that a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is a good start, but it’s a series of steps on the road to justice. Before you can have a diverse cohort of employees, you need to remove the systemic barriers that are preventing them from even applying to your company, and the barriers preventing them from succeeding once you’ve employed them.
Do people need ways of demonstrating their coding skills other than CodeSignal? Do the marginalized people you’re keen to hire even have access to the training they need to develop the skills required for your job? Once you have recruited them, do they have everything they need to feel safe and to flourish? Is there a quiet room for neurodivergent people? Are your washrooms gender-neutral individual cubicles? If not, can you provide at least one gender-neutral washroom? Does everyone include their pronouns on Zoom, Slack, and email? Do you allow people to have time off for their cultural or religious festivals? How do you help people who may be traumatized after fleeing a war zone? How do you ensure that all your employees are committed to respecting other people’s cultures and identities? How will you prevent workplace bullying and micro-management?
It is important to recognize the difference between cosmetic and performative DEI, and actions that really make a difference to the lives of your employees, customers, and suppliers.
A few weeks ago, someone shared this powerful graphic with me. It is a great illustration of the difference between equality, equity, and justice.
A new acronym for DEI has landed: JEDI, which stands for Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion. This is excellent, as it puts justice at the top of the agenda. Justice includes both social and environmental justice. Just Zero points out that 56% of people who live within 3 kilometres of a hazardous waste facility are People of Colour. In Canada, ongoing disasters like the Grassy Narrows mercury spill highlight the need for environmental justice.
How will you remove the structural and systemic causes of inequality that may exist at your company?
A great place to start is to have a trade union to represent your employees, as trade unions have a great track record in ensuring that employees get a fair deal, and they also have strong policies to support marginalized groups.
You can also encourage diverse groups of staff to form affinity groups. These are often called Employee Resource Groups, and may include groups for 2SLGBTQIA employees, disabled employees, neurodivergent employees, Black employees, Indigenous employees, Latine employees, Asian employees, and so on.
It is also a great idea to have a forum where all these groups can come together and work on removing systemic and structural barriers in the workplace.
Become a JEDI
We offer training in Justice, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
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