How IH’s DEI team cultivates a culture of trust & respect

We work closely with the Recruitment team to enable equitable, inclusive and culturally safe hiring practices during the recruitment and hiring process. We’re looking forward to building on employment equity this year.

Once candidates are hired, we have a broad range of offerings for staff to help them on their learning journey. Topics include reconciliation, unconscious bias, gender equity, microaggressions, Indigenous-specific antiracism and more.

We offer education through internal courses, webinars and in-person sessions, and engage with external partners such as the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) and Trans Care BC. As staff continue to grow and develop their DEI understanding, we’re excited to evolve our development offerings. All told, IH staff have completed 166,249 DEI related education courses.

We recently achieved a Rainbow Registered accreditation! The accreditation demonstrates our consistent efforts and commitment to providing a more welcoming and accepting space for 2SLGBTQIA+ candidates, staff, patients and members of the communities IH serves.

We have held many sessions with teams including Quality, Digital Health, Employee Relations, the Project Management Office and more to help different groups embed DEI into their work.

We find that the hardest part is starting the conversation around DEI, encouraging folks to speak up, and fostering environments where no question is a bad question – as long as it comes from a place of humility and kindness.

Once the conversation starts, there tends to be a lot of discussions around inclusive language. Each team or department has their own jargon, whether it be medical, technical, HR, etc. Making small changes in how we speak can have a huge impact on others and their experience.

Our team develops and curates resources and maintains the various Employee Experience webpages where employees can find a wealth of information to support integrating DEI into their work. Examples include our Indigenous terminology guide, honoraria and gifting guide, Indigenous vendors guide, inclusive language guide, 2SLGBTQIA+ related resources, English as an additional language resources, toolkits and resources for days of significance and recognition, and accessibility resources.

We are so excited about the We Are Allies campaign! We have a DEI advisory group, called Employee Voices, who we empower to be DEI champions across the organization.

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Employee Voices is a diverse group of staff members who range from frontline employees to senior leadership, who really help drive the DEI work forward at IH. We also have a quarterly DEI newsletter called Dive In that helps promote campaigns such as We Are Allies, and keeps staff informed of DEI-related news, webinars and events in their communities like Pride Season and National Indigenous Peoples Day.

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With more than 25,000 staff across a 215,000 km² region, we support groups in creating DEI sub-committees within their teams, whether it’s site-based at hospitals, or role-based such as Recruitment or Quality. Having passionate folks across the organization helps share education, resources and important campaigns such as We Are Allies.

Our team was thrilled to work in collaboration with staff and Indigenous Nation Partners to launch the Indigenous Employee Experience Strategy (the “Strategy”). Grounded in the voices and experiences of Indigenous employees, communities and Nation Partners, the Strategy was developed to enhance the overall employment experience for Indigenous Peoples within IH.

The Strategy addresses the recommendations in foundational documents such as the In Plain Sight Report, weaving external calls for change with internal strategies to build organizational capacity and create a positive employment experience for Indigenous job seekers, candidates and employees.

A comprehensive multi-year tactical plan is being developed to detail how and when the objectives and actions in the Strategy will be achieved and will be shared upon its completion in September 2024.

It can be tricky to assign metrics to feelings of belonging, inclusion and cultural safety. One method that we have undertaken in the past is launching a voluntary employee census to understand staff demographic data and associated feelings of inclusion.

We were pleased to have a higher response rate than anticipated and noticed some trends in the data. Staff who identify as being part of historically marginalized groups such as the 2SLGBQTIA+ community, Indigenous Peoples and persons with disabilities scored the lowest on the inclusion index. This key information helped our DEI team focus our efforts to create more resources, toolkits and programs that are designed to support these groups, to ensure that they have the best experience possible while working at IH.

While the employee census was a great snapshot into our employee demographics, it is just that—a snapshot. The data can quickly become outdated as our workforce shifts, so we are currently exploring opportunities to capture staff demographics more consistently, should they choose to disclose this information. Our goal is to have real-time insights into our workforce so that we can continue to support their unique identities and improve engagement, retention and foster a strong sense of inclusion and belonging at IH.

In addition to internal quantitative data, our progress can be seen publicly as well. IH’s commitment towards equity, inclusion and accessibility is evident through the Indigenous Employee Experience Strategy and the launch of our upcoming Accessibility Plan. These strategies enable accountability and allow us to measure our progress in implementing policies, practices and programs aimed at addressing systemic and structural barriers. We're excited for the journey ahead!

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