At IDEA, we design each engagement with attention to your organization’s current state and future goals. Our investigative process will include a careful review of your policies, processes, and protocols, and demographic data and engagement survey results, as available. Spending the time getting to know your business, culture and people will ensure that your IDEA strategy and action plan is as unique as your organization.

Inclusion initiatives must reflect the diversity of, well, diversity. For many decades, these programs have had a narrow lens, focusing mainly on gender. Gains made primarily by white women now need to be matched by progress for all equity-deserving groups. Your IDEA strategy will speak to the particular experiences of Black, Indigenous and employees of colour, members of the LGBTQ2S+ community, employees with disabilities, women of all communities, and employees with caregiving obligations.

There was a time when diversity programs were focused on representation. Organizations wanted to bring more diverse people through the door, but few were doing the work internally to ensure that door was not a revolving one. At IDEA Consulting Group, we know that diversity is more than a box-checking exercise. We will work with you to identify where there may be unintentional bias in your policies and practices, and achieve real, sustainable change. Our emphasis on retention and advancement will leverage the potential of all of your talent.

Focusing on your organization’s culture and structure, we will develop a comprehensive, sustainable and impactful IDEA plan that will improve your ability to attract, retain and advance members of equity-deserving groups, and elevate your brand. We will leave you with a concrete and actionable strategy, as well as a measurement plan that will allow you to track and report on your progress.

You cannot build a sustainable IDEA plan from the top-down. We will work with you to create a governance and consultation strategy for our engagement that will include individual and group discussions with your people and anonymous surveys. Centering the voices and needs of your employees will ensure the process is inclusive and help create buy-in from the bottom-up. We will also work closely with your leadership, to make sure you get the product you need and to equip leaders with the tools needed to champion the strategy.

Diversity is as complex as it is broad. Intersectionality refers to the layers of social identities that create systems of disadvantage. Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term over 30 years ago, to bring to light the limits of antidiscrimination theories and politics. An IDEA strategy that takes only one identity at a time into account – for example, gender or race, but not gender and race – will erase women of colour. Your IDEA plan will focus on equity practices that work for all of your people. See this article for more on this.

Inclusion and a sense of belonging is required for members of equity-deserving groups to thrive in the workplace. Shifting mindsets, behaviours and practices is critical to ensure that everyone in your organization can reach their full potential. We will work with you to create a culture of belonging, where everyone feels valued, and no one needs to leave parts of themselves at the door when they come to work.

At IDEA, we know these can be difficult topics to discuss, and there can be discomfort involved in acknowledging privilege and letting go of power. At IDEA, we understand that everyone is on their own journey when it comes to appreciating what is truly involved in dismantling and confronting workplace barriers and discrimination. We will work with your leaders and your people to build relationships, and trust. This is hard work, but our shame-free approach will leave you feeling educated, not judged.