'Talk is cheap': How companies can act on diversity targets amid an economic crisis

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This year has seen a push to change workplace culture and retain more diverse staff, and experts want to see the momentum continue.

Jaqui Parchment, the CEO of Mercer Canada, poses for a photograph in Toronto on Monday, July 13, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana MartinTORONTO -- When Jaqui Parchment was climbing Canada's corporate ladder, she noticed office cliques formed around members of the same hockey team and frequently overheard senior consultants chattering about their next round of golf with important clients.

Seven in 10 corporate leaders said their focus on diversity, equality and inclusion has increased since then, Mercer found in a November study that surveyed leaders from 54 Canadian companies. Some have published specific measures outlining how they plan to do better. The team said goodbye to golf tournaments at prestigious Glen Abbey. Jerk chicken, Chinese food and samosas started making the menu at company events and clients were entertained with treats that matched their interests instead of the traditional tickets to the game or round of golf.

That strategy is already coming to life at Toronto-based digital rewards company Drop Technologies Inc. It crunched its own numbers in June and discovered 44 per cent were white and 56 per cent were "ethnically diverse" but not one employee was Black. Drop worked with staff to find ways to better represent Canada's population. It settled on ideas that touch every department, including ensuring at least 30 per cent of models used in the company's emails, social media and advertising are Black, Indigenous or people of colour, hosting internal events on allyship and anti-racism and donating one per cent of the money redeemed on its app each month to Black-centric charities.

Parchment said Mercer is "further behind" on racial diversity, but is working on tracking it this year.

 

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