You might be familiar with the term ‘harm’ and perhaps even ‘microaggressions’, but how well do you know these terms in the context of the workplace and the ways that employers need to be held accountable in creating the right definitions of harm and the reporting systems. This is the first in a series on harm to help you better define harm, building the mechanisms for reporting and more.

We want to help you folks make this process as data driven, human focused, and equitable as possible. With that in mind, we’ve created a free toolkit that includes a survey to share with your team, a guide to analyze the results of the survey, and a guide to creating a safe virtual and physical workplace for BIPOC employees. This toolkit is designed to support informed and open conversations with your workforce to identify wants and needs of employees, as well as concerns and opportunities. Asking these questions can help understand the existing gaps in order to move forward with an equitable framework.

Diversity, Inclusion and Equity work is often discussed in a way that uses blanket statements to describe the problem. DEI is positioned as if it is the problem we’re trying to solve. Non-committal, passive language like “we need to do better” or “we know we aren’t perfect” or “harm is being caused” is often used. But there is often very little in the way of specifics. It’s never articulate what we can do better, where we aren’t perfect, who is being harmed and by what/who.

When you are recruiting, interviewing and making offers you must understand that you are not the only one making a decision. The power dynamics in a recruitment process are skewed in your favour as the recruiter, which means you need to be actively working to ensure every candidate has as much information as possible to make an informed decision.

So by asking people of colour, Black people, Indigenous people, what racism looks like in their organizations, you are asking them to dilute the systemic, colonial roots of an industry, into a quick story of how their manager called them the ‘N’ word.

If you set out to solve racism, or “tackle inequality, and be more inclusive”, you're tasking your small, volunteer team with solving global hunger, curing cancer and solving world peace. It’s important to be realistic about your mandate and cast your net in a way that sets you up for success.

QuakeLab’s model hinges on one central idea: you and your organization want to do things differently. We feel confident that if you’re reading this, you understand that the bare minimum - one that latches on diversity only, is not enough. If you have made it this far, we are assuming that you believe rigorous investigation into historical systems of oppression is necessary.

Trauma mining: the process of creating an environment that demands that Black people, Indigenous peoples, women, Disabled people, members of the LGBTQ2S community share experiences of discrimination. This process is branded as necessary for the moving forward of an organization in it’s journey to become more equitable. However, it serves no purpose to those who are forced to relive their trauma, but attempts to prove to their colleagues that racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. is in fact real.

But on a larger scale, what we are also trying to do is change the culture of diversity, equity and inclusion that demands we continue to work and live in the structures and systems that we know are inherently inequitable. We are working to give folks the space, tools and permission to assess the ways we build our organization - and then shake things up (QUAKELab, get IT :)).

We cannot hoard knowledge and new equitable ways of working for the purpose of ensuring sole ownership. When we learn how to do this work better, and we share that with you, you do this work better and make the world less awful for the folks who need it the most.

As we collectively struggle towards the end of 2020 and move further away from June’s catalyzing public awareness around Black Lives Matter, it’s going to get even more difficult to make the case for dedicating organizational budget and resources towards equity and inclusion.

The ways in which your organization approaches and executes communications says a lot about how inclusive, equitable, and even how diverse you are.

Unconscious bias training, diversity training, ethnic sensitivity training, anti-oppression training are most often seen as quick ways to placate the folks with the most privilege in your organization, and do nothing for the stakeholders who experience the most harm and exclusion.

Canadians, here are some next steps for how you can support BIPOC folks in our communities.

We’ve put together some external data, resources and information on diversity, inclusion, belonging and equity that we think you might find handy.

If you’re starting the difficult work of critically assessing what’s up with retention at your organization, here are a few tips

Ok - I get it, talking about money is hard. But it’s even harder for folks who need it the most, have the least institutional power, and who consider collaboration a good professional opportunity.

To help you get started, I’ve compiled a list of some big things you can do to address common inclusion challenges around planning, employee recruitment and retention. This list is by no means exhaustive and should be explored collaboratively with a member of the group(s) you’re working to include.

Movements around the globe are garnering attention, igniting hashtags, and demanding change. But little is being shared within Canada on how we can actively support Black people in our communities. Let the list below be a starting point.

So, my ask of all of you managers, supervisors, CEO’s, Founders etc.: Instead of “checking in” on your black team members and staff, Here are a couple of things you can do