The most common types of DEI training we rely on make the assumption that information alone will drive change in behaviour and reduce systematic inequalities. These trainings often focus on raising awareness about bias, diversity, and inclusion through informational sessions on topics like unconscious bias, anti-racism, or cultural competency. The goal is to make participants aware of their biases and equip them with knowledge, with the hope that this will lead to behavioural changes.

Employers that update their benefits and policies to reflect the realities of diverse households will find themselves more attractive to the best talent entering the market. This is particularly important given the current labor shortage across multiple sectors. By accommodating a broader definition of family, companies not only align with social progress but also position themselves as forward-thinking, competitive employers in a rapidly changing workforce.

At QuakeLab, we're always striving to push boundaries and explore innovative approaches that foster equity, productivity, and well-being. With that in mind, early this year, we kicked off a 4-day work week trial. In this article, I, Sharon Nyangweso, CEO of QuakeLab, will walk you through the pros and challenges of the 4-day work week from the perspective of a business owner and company principal. Additionally, Susan Ong, QuakeLab’s Inclusion Strategist, will share her experience with our 4-day work week pilot.

These case studies all show exciting potential. However, it’s important no to limit ourselves, after all, we want to aim for the ceiling not the floor. A key aspect often missing from these initiatives is a broader analysis of equity that moves past just diversity. Procurement equity falls into the numbers trap of setting goals based on diversity numbers. It’s important to collect and analyze metrics that seek to learn not just how many marginalized people and business can access procurement opportunities, but the practical and tangible barriers that they have to face, and how to systematically remove them. Incentivizing marginalized business owners to bid for procurement opportunities is one thing, assessing the barriers that they were facing and eliminating them is a whole other thing.

The RFP process is a powerful tool that can either perpetuate inequity or drive positive change. By addressing the equity issues inherent in RFPs, organizations can create more inclusive procurement processes that open up opportunities for a broader range of businesses.

Procurement policies are the rules and guidelines that govern how organizations acquire goods and services. These policies are designed to ensure transparency, fairness, and efficiency in the procurement process. As part of our process of complicating perceived neutrality, it’s important to ask, who does your policy ensure transparency, fairness and efficiency for? Without a deliberate focus on equity, these policies can inadvertently reinforce existing inequalities.

In Canada, government procurement is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. According to the Government of Canada's Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), the federal government spends approximately $20 billion annually on procurement. This substantial expenditure underscores the importance of equitable procurement practices in ensuring that public funds are used to benefit all segments of society equitably.

In the world of data analysis, design, and decision-making, the concept of "average" often provides a comforting, albeit misleading, reference point. This reliance on averages can obscure the true diversity and richness of human experience, leading to flawed assumptions and inequitable outcomes. At QuakeLab, challenging the myth of the average is paramount.

The Government of Canada has released the next iteration of its Anti-Racism Strategy and the QuakeLab team did a speed read so you didn’t have to.

At QuakeLab, we have always worked to understand the way systems and their discrepancies overlap, interact and compound. Polycrisis has been a critical framework in helping us understand how to define problems in a robust way, and how to create solutions for that don't replicate the root of the problem. This layering of systems that become more nefarious, expensive and damaging as a whole than in their individual parts becomes an excellent way to discuss perceived neutrality and invisible factors.

In today's data-driven world, information is king. But, not all data are created equal. The real magic happens when data is disaggregated – broken down into its smallest components, revealing insights and patterns that might otherwise remain hidden. For businesses, collecting and using disaggregated data isn't just a best practice; it's a strategic imperative for staying competitive, meeting the diverse needs of your customers, users, beneficiaries and team. Most importantly, disaggregated is an important step in advancing equity. Let’s delve into the case for harnessing disaggregated data through an equity lens.

However, we’re going back to the first principle here - doing the same thing hasn’t yielded very good results in community consultations. So maybe it’s actually costing us more money than it should, and it’s time to try something different.

In the last post, we talked about how municipalities tend to default to the same mechanisms for public consultations - online call outs for engagement which results in the same people showing up again and again and again. We identified some of the barriers that other community members may face. In this post, we talk about what happens when attempts are made to expand the consultation reach and how this can perpetuate harm.

We’re not here to kill the vibe, but when done without an equity lens, public consultations or engagements run by government are at best, perfunctory and ineffectual and at worse, perpetuate harm. How? We’ll explain.

Creating strong naming principles, policies and frameworks that are embedded in equity are an important step to reducing the likelihood of future renaming. Places reflect the lives of the ever changing communities around them, and the changing nature of the world and celebrate everyone, not just a few. 

We are rapidly moving towards a future where the ability to assess the outputs and process of your work, understand who it is serving, who it is disenfranchising, and how to course correct - will no longer be a nice to have niche, but a necessity. At QuakeLab, we call this equity as a technical skill.

Much like science, technology, math, and STEM in general, finance and accounting has often been positioned as an industry and discipline that exists in a vacuum untouched, unobstructed and unaffected by power, oppression and inequity. The going argument is that this field sits on a mathematical foundation that cannot be biased or inequitable. But if you’ve been with us a while, you know that inequity doesn’t respect our organizational boundaries and more importantly, our workplaces often (if not always), reflect the inequity of the world.

In an effort to inject workplaces with the kind of equitable systems that we at QuakeLab champion, those who are doing the work have become scared and dismissive of the hard things that are normal and ok in the workplace. This does not mean that we rid ourselves of the critical analysis of our workplaces that ensures that even when we are doing the hard things, they are done equitably. Rather it means that we must be solid enough in our efforts for justice and equity to understand that there is a difference.

In this blog, we’ll be walking you through what to look for before diving into DEI work, where we recommend jumping in enthusiastically, and when to seriously consider being deeply cautious whether or not you go forward.

Unfortunately, if your DEI approach has been focused on diversification (recruitment), economic instability and hiring freezes means you’re left with a DEI plan that's all bark no bite. 

But not all is lost, here’s what DEI in a recruitment-light world looks like!