Your values are how you show up in the world as a human, so it would be strange if your website did not reflect your values.
Values are not the same as politics, although they do affect how you vote and what you campaign for.
There is a broad social consensus in Canada that we support the rights of 2SLGBTQIA people, Black people, Indigenous Peoples, and disabled people, and it seems that most companies seek to uplift these groups and their rights to some extent. (Other topics may be more controversial.)
It is sometimes difficult to know where to draw the dividing line between values and politics, and in a business situation, it depends on whether you want to attract a broad range of clients, or only people who share your political views.
Not feeling the need to have political opinions is a privilege experienced by people who are not frequently harmed by government policies, and who are not marginalized and endangered by other people’s political views.
If you support the rights of marginalized people, your company’s website, employment policies, and premises should reflect that support.
Your website and communications
Canada (along with most other legal jurisdictions) requires websites to be accessible by law. This means that they need to comply with accessibility standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. There are online tools for checking accessibility, but do you know how to fix the issues that they highlight? One of the services we offer is improving your website’s accessibility.
Making sure your content is readable and written in plain language is important. You can check the readability score of your content with online tools.
If you have photographs of people on your website, make sure they are not all the same gender, all the same colour, or all able-bodied.
The tone of voice you use to write your website reflects your values.
Even the colours you use on your website can reflect your values to some extent, as well as your brand.
Adding your pronouns to biographies on your website, email signatures, Zoom profile, Slack profile etc shows that you support trans and nonbinary people.
If you live on colonized land, a land acknowledgment is a good thing to add to your website and email signature, but make sure that it is not just performative.
Your employment policies
Your employment policies include things like vacation time, paid sick leave, time off for family and bereavement reasons, salary and promotion, health insurance that covers gender-affirming care, bonuses, harassment, complaints, and grievance procedures, support for marginalized groups, trade union membership, and so on. Many of these are governed by legal requirements, but others are at the discretion of employers.
Make sure it is clear to all staff, contractors, suppliers, and visitors that homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic comments are not acceptable, along with other forms of bigotry. Make sure to offer training to ensure that staff are aware of these policies. It is especially important that this is included in onboarding training courses.
Your premises
You may have noticed that several businesses and stores in Canada now have a Progress Pride flag on the premises, either in the form of a sticker at the door, or a Pride flag flying. Indicating support for Black and Indigenous rights is also helpful.
It also helps if there are gender-neutral washrooms. The best ones are single-stall, accessible directly from a corridor, and labelled as gender-neutral with both text and Braille. Accessible washrooms are a legal requirement.
Become a JEDI
We offer training in Justice, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.