As we settle into 2022, our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (“EDI”) Committee is reflecting on its accomplishments in 2021 and setting goals for the upcoming year.
Part of this reflection includes updating our community about our progress, as we promised to do in our official statement.
In 2021, we actioned priorities that we set for our Firm in our continued commitment to EDI. A selection of our accomplishments is outlined below:
- Accountability
- We are recruiting for a Director of EDI, a senior member of our business services team.
- We hired an external consultant who facilitated an internal qualitative and quantitative diversity survey to allow us to better understand the Firm’s demographic makeup and its workplace climate.
- Education
- We began reviewing key Firm policies and made recommendations about how these policies can be revised to better promote EDI principles. We will continue this review in 2022.
- We offered regular educational programming to our Firm members to continue learning about EDI issues related to race, sexual orientation and more. Some of our programming was facilitated by members of our Firm, and other programming was facilitated by hired members of our community with diverse voices and perspectives.
- Recruitment / Hiring
- We mandated unconscious bias training for everyone involved with recruitment and hiring. We also overhauled our framework for student recruitment. This included implementing standardized questions for candidates to eliminate any risk of unconscious biases affecting the recruitment process.
- Inclusive / Equal Workplace
- We established a diversity calendar to guide internal and external recognition and celebration of significant events for equality-seeking groups. In 2021, we held eight (8) EDI-related events on occasions that included Black History Month, Asian Heritage Month, Pride Month and Orange Shirt Day.
- We created 3 internal affinity groups (and formed one external partnership with a client for possible future joint EDI initiatives including a program to assist small businesses in the Black community, with the goal of expanding to Indigenous and other racialized communities if successful).
We know that our Firm’s commitment to EDI is a work in progress and we are very proud of all that has been accomplished so far. We look forward to continuing this work in 2022 and making an impact where possible.