With People Inc.

Job Readiness: Born Mainly from Positions of Privilege, What is it Now?

by | Apr 26, 2021 | Colonialism, Competition, Equity, Human Resources, Indigenous, Labour Market Update, Recruitment, TRC 92 (ii), Welcoming, Workplace Respect

Suppose we Googled the phrase “job-ready” and looked back to the content date stamped at just about 2000. The phrase was not as pervasive as it is today and is often referred to as:

  • machines and equipment that were job-ready[1] for the projects that needed them,
  • welfare recipients[2] and convicts who were job-ready[3], and
  • projects themselves being job-ready (i.e. ready for people; what we now refer to as “shovel-ready”).

Hence, the phrase was about:

  • the absence of, or remediation of, socioeconomic barriers to achieving a job,
  • about the scheduling function of projects concerning material and equipment, or
  • scopes of work developed enough to receive the workforce required to execute the work.

Between 2001-2005, industry stakeholders began to use the phrase more widely; it was about candidates for employment having all the required training tickets for safety-sensitive positions, usually in the industrial construction and maintenance sector.

In Alberta, this was born mainly from a place of privilege. During such time, building trade union members performed most heavy industrial construction and maintenance work in the Wood Buffalo and the Industrial Heartland regions. Each hiring hall had a multi-employer-funded training trust fund, indirectly paid for by major industrial clients through cost-plus funding arrangements with their contracted service providers. Despite this, the practice was that those members dispatched would spend the first 3-4 days on-site, on paid time, in safety training. Often the project and employer would be retraining members who would not disclose that they already had the certification in question.

Who wants to be out in minus thirty turning wrenches when they could be on paid time, sitting in a lovely warm classroom, drinking coffee, learning about fall arrest for the twentieth time?

Safety professionals certainly did not lose sleep over this waste; it meant more business for them. In the heavy industrial construction and maintenance sector, there is no business like the safety business.

Then, the ones paying the bill had enough.

Purchasers of significant industrial capital projects sent their auditors in, who began to ask questions.

If we have to pay to train everyone anyways, why are we also paying millions of dollars each year into training trust funds?

There was no good answer to this uncomfortable question, and it became an awkward conversation at the bargaining table.

The repetitive training and upload of the training responsibility to the industry’s best clients became, to some extent, a prevailing practice.

Employers needed to address the issue with the bargaining representatives of the members who took such liberties for granted for a long time. The Ironworkers, Carpenters and Labourers stepped up. They recognized they were in the business of supplying qualified, skilled tradespeople and construction professionals to the industry and ended the practice.

They readily agreed to dispatch their members “job-ready,” meaning they were pre-trained, supported by their training trust fund, and ready to go to work.

It took multiple rounds of bargaining for other unions to remove this waste; they would argue that their members were entitled to their entitlements. They instead invested in bricks and mortar of large and lavish training centres with the owner-funded unspent training dues.

If you treat your clients this poorly, any business person knows they will not be clients for long. This situation was no different.

Building trade unions have since lost market share; they no longer perform most of the work available in the Wood Buffalo and Industrial Heartland regions.

Now most workers participating in the industry are no longer dispatched through hiring halls and are no longer supported by funded training trust funds.

When this shift happened, site owners and employers maintained the practice of insisting workers be job-ready.

As a result, the industry downloaded the responsibility for training certifications onto the backs of working construction and maintenance tradespeople.

Now we have no problem with established journeypeople maintaining their safety certifications as part of what it means to be committed to their profession. We feel less comfortable about this within the context of newcomers and apprentices.

We also recognize that this practice, which came from a place of privilege, can have a disproportionate impact on members of groups of individuals who have not traditionally participated in the industry, such as women and BIPOC candidates.

Just one example, members of Indigenous communities living in remote communities do not have equal access to training resources as other candidates.

Workforce Delivery Inc constantly self-scrutinizes our processes, actively seeking to identify structural, systemic and institutional barriers and then apply measures and, at times, a positive bias to eradicate those barriers.

This is what it is like, to recruit right?

If you want to understand more about Workforce Delivery Inc’s recruitment services, contact us at [email protected] or visit us on our recruitment services page.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Sam Kemble

Chief Operating Officer, With People Inc.

[1] RIOT-The Scheduling Problem (berkeley.edu)

[2] How Are Families That Left Welfare Doing? (urban.org); Welfare-to-Work Block Grants: Are They Working? (brookings.edu)

[3] Recruiting and employing offenders (employabilityinscotland.com)

 

Why Safety Rules Must Be and Be Perceived as Reasonable

by | Feb 11, 2021 | Alcohol & Drug Policy, Compliance, Human Resources, Labour Market Update, OH&S, Safety

Safety Rules: Like many controls on safety-sensitive worksites, our preferred line of defence is to eliminate or completely control hazards through design and engineering. Administrative controls must mitigate residual threats that companies cannot, for lack of a better phrase, engineer out of the work process. Managerial measures include controls levered by training, policy and procedures and personal protective equipment requirements. Together they are designed to motivate or encourage employee behaviour to eliminate further, mitigate or control residual safety risk.

We rely on safety rules and rule compliance for many reasons, including to protect employees’ safety. To set and administer rules effectively, we pay heed and study the realm of human behaviour.

Many industrial safety-sensitive sites operate on a reasonably authoritative chain of command structure to organize and execute work. However, due to the often large geographic footprint of industrial worksites, usually in dynamic, open environments exposed to changing factors, companies must rely heavily on autonomous rule compliance, which means that individuals follow the rules when not in the line of sight of one who directly supervises them. Thus, safety performance relies on the cultural norms and buy-in of teams working to keep each other safe. Individual compliance and peer enforcement rely on a hearts and minds approach or buy-in into the rule. This requires leaders to explain and inspire, rather than solely direct and instruct safety leadership when setting and administering controls. Therefore, we need to be willing to get into the questions. Why is a rule essential? What prompted management to install the expectation? Why is it in my interest and my coworkers’ interest to follow these rules? And, what makes this rule reasonable? These are the types of questions that need to be embraced and explored with crews to achieve a hearts and minds buy-in. If our team does not understand why a rule is made or does not believe it is reasonable, things can go wrong.

To illustrate, I’m going to reflect on one of my favourite courses at university. It was lead by a quirky history professor who studied a phenomenon called jury nullification in early English common law. He referenced heavily Thomas Andrew Green’s book, Verdict According to Conscience. During this time, England defined murder by statute. Hence, the courts were not authorized to find anything inconsistent with the statute’s definition of murder. The crime of murder was described as a death where a human had contributed to that death. If a court found that someone had committed murder, the automatic consequence was capital punishment. It was a capital offence, and within this construct, there was only one defence, which was self-defence. Self-defence was also very rigidly defined. The individual relying on self-defence had to be smaller than the would-be attacker, had to be wielding a smaller weapon, or the individual that was fallen had to have been wielding a more deadly weapon than the individual relying on the self-defence. A person depending on the defence also needed to be unable to escape the would-be attacker. All three of these things need to be in place for a jury to find a person not guilty by self-defence.

My professor and historian Thomas Andrew Green was appropriately suspicious of how this may have played out in real-life in jury trials. They compared jury trials’ findings of fact during that timeframe against the facts issued by coroners reports in the same cases.

They found discrepancies between the coroner reports and jury findings of fact. Case in point, one coroner report found that the husband walked into his home where he found his wife with another man. A struggle ensues. The husband used a knife to stab the man. The man dies. A jury in the same case found the following. The husband encounters a man outside of his home. The jury found the man had an axe (the axe, appearing out of nowhere), and the husband, while trapped against the edge of a cliff (which also appeared out of nowhere), was unable to escape. The jury concluded the husband used the knife to defend himself against the man wielding an axe.

In that case, the jury didn’t find that the rule was reasonable. The jury did not find the consequence suitable. Hence, rather than issue an unjust ruling leading to an unjust consequence, the jury searched for and found the facts required that would enable them to rule the individual not guilty by self-defence. So essentially, the jury nullified the unreasonable rule. Thomas Andrew Green refers to this as jury nullification.

The same can happen to us if our workers do not believe that our safety rules are reasonable or reasonably administered. Leaders must continue to accept questions regarding why we do the things we do. Invest in the effort to explain and inspire because failing to do so may result in our safety rules being nullified out in the field when we’re not looking.

 

A prime example of this points to the Alberta Construction Industry’s experience in administering the COAA’s Canadian Model for Providing a Safe Workplace: Alcohol and Drug Guidelines and Work Rule. Earlier versions of the model relied upon almost exclusively peer and front line supervisory administration of the rule in two basic scenarios: 1) a relatively prescriptive post-incident testing rule, and 2) a more subjective “reasonable cause” testing rule. Often, owners and safety representatives found a 20-25% non-negative result from post-incident testing (a lagging indicator as an incident or near miss would already have occurred). One in five or one in four safety incidents occurred concurrent to the presence of alcohol and drug levels higher than that allowed under the safety-based work rule. The forgoing coincided with a low-level of the frequency of peer or supervisor-initiated reasonable cause tests (a control arguably more preventative than the post-incident testing).

Hence the discretionary aspects of the safety rule were nullified.

Upon further explanation, peer and front-line supervisors were reluctant to administer the rule for three key reasons: 1) discomfort confronting one on their substance use, especially with the stigma attached to alcohol and drug use and abuse, 2) they did not feel the testing regime was fair in respect to the marijuana panel, which measured levels associated with use on personal time away from work, and 3) they did not believe the consequences associated with a positive test were fair for those who recreationally used marijuana. As a result, many employers who installed the Canadian Model on their worksites had a significant portion of their work rule nullified by its workforce, drastically reducing the safety efficacy of the practice, which was its primary purpose in the first place.

There are answers to the concerns of peer enforcers and front-line supervisors. However, in that case, leaders were not equipped to demonstrate the rule’s reasonableness or appropriateness. The rest was history. Supervisors and peers’ reluctance to administer the reasonable cause portion of the Canadian Model prompted owners to impose site access testing to fill the void in preventative controls regarding their Alcohol and Drug Administrative controls.

2020 Initiative and Industrial Relations List for With People Inc.

by | Dec 19, 2020 | Alcohol & Drug Policy, Bullying, Collective Bargaining, Colonialism, Competition, Compliance, Equity, Harassment, Human Resources, Indigenous, Labour Market Update, Negotiations, OH&S, Recruitment, Safety, Sexual Harassment, TRC 92 (ii), Workplace Respect

Inventory of service activities delivered to clients in 2020, a report by Sam Kemble

A Word from the Executive Operations Officer 

We diversified our client base and service offerings during the year, added capacity, strengthened our balance sheet, and improved our processes. We supported organizations to meet extraordinary and complex challenges through various service offerings.

We are inspired by our client’s character, understanding and compassion towards their employees, union partners, and stakeholders, all during a year that could strain any relationship. We are grateful to continue serving industries and enterprises in Canada.

We wish all well as we approach the New Year.

Respectfully submitted,

Sam Kemble

Executive Operating Officer

Industrial Relations – Negotiations

This year in industrial relations, we bargained collectively with various Building Trade unions in Saskatchewan, CUPE in Edmonton, Unifor in Windsor, and UFCW in Edmonton. Also, we engaged in First Nation Mutual Benefits Agreement Negotiations West of Edmonton.

Industrial Relations

We continue to deepen our service and experience in general industrial relations through grievance administration, progressive discipline support, collective agreement interpretation, group lay-off and bumping-process support, coal-to-gas transition supports, recall list administration, temporary layoff supports, arbitration case management, contracting out, severance liability included in a temporary layoff context, right to refuse unsafe work in a COVID-19 context, pension plan and health benefits and insurance administration, and common employer and successor employer analysis.

Policy Development

We engaged in robust alcohol and drug policy development and costing models, participated in public policy creation and review through the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and developed several policies and practice documents in employment administration.

Training

Ongoing training and workshops were developed and delivered, covering performance management, labour and employee relations, industrial relations, anti-harassment, bullying and violence. Work continues to migrate these modules to an online delivery format for broad and safe accessibility.

 

Recruitment

Significant time has been invested in enhancing our craft recruitment process, including modules for equity hiring and onboarding. We supported clients to develop a 48-hour rule hiring process to coincide with hiring hall scenarios. Cost models have been developed and simulated for craft sourcing, recruitment and onboarding for numerous multi-year projects. Our firm provided direct recruitment support for a plant south of Edmonton, a shutdown near Regina, road construction in Calgary, a pipeline in BC, a plant west of Edmonton, an institutional project in Terrace, recruitment for project administration in Northwest BC, a manufacturing facility south of Edmonton, several residential projects in the Greater Vancouver area, an infrastructure project in Lloydminster, and a roadbuilding project in the Greater Vancouver area.

We have adopted a positive bias into our recruitment process that prefers Indigenous, BIPOC and women candidates.

COVID-19

2020 brought the need to support clients with Covid-19 response measures, including service for essential service employees, implementing masking, hygiene, and physical distancing policies while restructuring work arrangements through staggering shifts and rotating site presence protocols. Various sick and other leave provisions required interpretation within a pandemic context. We also ensured rights and obligations to refuse unsafe work were adequately adhered to within a COVID-19 context. The pandemic also brought unique factors requiring a considered review of human rights and employment statute-protected accommodations, including leave and work accommodations. Many employers also found it necessary to navigate both the in and the out-of-work-from-home transitions.

We are grateful for the opportunity to be of service during such challenging and dynamic times. 

Industrial Relations – Operations / Execution

We engaged in front-end engineering and design (FEED) support for significant capital projects’ workforce delivery and the management component. We increased our forecasting and costing analysis capacity and conducted field execution productivity studies, developed project costing studies, and conducted labour posture comparison studies for construction and maintenance. We developed and supported wall-to-wall craft recruitment models. 

Justice and Social

We provided Jordan’s principal policy, advice, and advocacy within our social justice portfolio. We developed Treaty-based education agreements and policies.

Together with expert volunteers, we are about to release an employer mental health and wellness practice document.

We commenced service to the Board of the Colbourne Institute for Inclusive Leadership.

As a firm, we are taking an aggressive approach to positive bias recruiting to ameliorate disadvantaged and historically disadvantaged groups’ inequities.

 

With People Inc. Internal Capacity

In 2020, the firm increased recruitment, project controls, human resources and data science capacity.

We made investments in achieving a CPHR Certification, investigative report writing training, first aid training, and Principles of Health and Safety Management.

We afforded access to professional coaching to staff to increase career development and the strength of our team.

We created an operational contingency reserve for our operations to de-risk the potential for Covid-19 to impact our staffing levels. We also adopted an accounting policy to carry a fully funded severance liability on our balance sheet.

Throughout 2020 we continue to develop apps for release in 2021, including a force ranking app – 90% complete, a witness credibility app – 70% complete, a quantum of discipline review app – 70% complete. Also, we rebuilt our workforce applicant tracking and onboarding system – 70% complete.

In the ongoing interest of advancing awareness and education in human resources and employee and industrial relations, we maintained our educational Blog, Podcast, and Video Channel (hosted on YouTube).

Visit our homepage for more information about our human resources and industrial relations firm with offices in Edmonton, Alberta, Prince George and Victoria, British Columbia.

Systemic Racism and the Cave Analogy

by | Aug 16, 2020 | Bullying, Colonialism, Compliance, Equity, Exclude, Harassment, Human Resources, Indigenous, Labour Market Update, OH&S, Safety, TRC 92 (ii), Welcoming, Workplace Respect

Today we discuss Plato’s cave analogy and systemic racism in Canada. Like many, we in our firm accept that systemic racism exists throughout Canada and is interwoven into our institutions.

This statement comes neither from a place of judgement nor is it presented to suggest castigation of those subject to the system’s influence within which we all reside.

 Accepting that many forms of racism are prevalent throughout our society is simply an appreciation of the state of things, without judgment – and from there comes, a choice and perhaps, hopefully – a commitment.

 We write this within weeks of May 25, 2020. During this time, much has been in the news which illuminates the pervasiveness of racism in many forms in our institutions, including within our police forces. The police are no worse or better than most of Canada’s institutions.

Recent events reinforce that responsibility to get it right increases exponentially for those who exercise authority, and at times, force over others.

 And as Ibram X Kendi emphasizes in his 2019 book, “How to Be an Antiracist,” getting it right must be viewed, relatively, from where we are at. So, given where we are today, getting it right starts with acknowledging there is a problem. Sadly, for some (but not all) senior leadership positions within police force administration and police member associations, acknowledging that there is a  problem is more than they are willing to offer at the moment. Rather, some choose to deny it with vigour.

 We intend to explore this denial and anchor our discussion; we will reference Plato’s Cave Analogy in his classic, “Republic.”

In the Cave Analogy, Plato considers three people bound in a seated position in a cave with their heads affixed staring at a wall, for their entire life. Light enters from behind them from the mouth of the cave. From time to time, animals cross the mouth of the cave and cast shadows onto the wall they are facing. The three never knew differently, so what they were witnessing on the cave wall, was to them, an accurate reflection of life and reality.

Eventually, the bindings of one of the three came loose. With muscles that had yet been used, the escapee slowly struggled and eventually made their way to the cave entrance.

Upon reaching the mouth of the cave, the escapee experienced a great deal of pain. Eyes that knew only darkness and shadow were exposed to the sun’s bright light for the first time. Soon, the eyes adjusted, and the escapee witnessed the wondrous beauty, fullness and truth of the world.

After exploring, the escapee returned to the cave, wishing to share the freedom and revelation with the escapee’s former cave mates.

The escapee removed the bindings of the cave mates, and they struggled but moved towards the mouth of the cave. As they approached the mouth of the cave, sunlight struck their eyes, causing immense pain. Immediately, they asked why the escapee would cause them such pain and resented the escapee for it.

Ultimately, the pain of exposure to the light and the pain of accepting the truth was too great for the cave mates. Angrily, they hone in on the escapee, whom they stoned to death for causing them such pain, following which, they returned to their seats in the cave to carry on staring at the shadows on the wall.

Racism, including systemic racism, exists in Canada. Despite this, people continue to choose to deny that fact. We should not be surprised. As the cave analogy shows, holding contempt for information that challenges previously held beliefs is human nature. Such denial is neither right nor necessarily permanent.

 

And what of the visceral, conditioned emotional responses and attacks that come with such denials? Many in pain seek to destroy. They wish to focus their anger towards someone or something, to stop the exchange of information, and then, they wish to carry on living in their cave- in their distorted reality. They choose to deny the existence of systemic racism.

To be racist, that being, “One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea.” Or, to be antiracist, that being, “One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their action or expressing an antiracist idea.” Objectively, it is impossible to reduce racism without acknowledging that systemic racism exists.

[Ibram X Kendi, 2019]

You’ll note that neither choice represents a static position, both choices describe one engaged in action…being static is not an option.

When looked at this way, this is a journey to embark upon and has nothing to do with permanent condemnations. So given recent events, we choose to, in a non-judgemental way in terms of where we are at today, actively seek new information to permit our eyes to adjust, for the alternative is to stay blind and hurt.

Thank you for your time. Subscribe for future updates.

Are We Setting Indigenous Relations Resources Up for Success?

Are We Setting Indigenous Relations Resources Up for Success?

by | Oct 27, 2019 | Bullying, Colonialism, Compliance, Harassment, Human Resources, Indigenous, TRC 92 (ii), Workplace Respect

October 27, 2019, |Bullying, Colonialism, Compliance, Harassment, Human Resources, Indigenous, TRC 92 (ii), Workplace Respect

 

When it Comes to Indigenous Relations Portfolios, Company Leaders are Oft’ Dropped into the Ocean Without Compass.

 Many managers are not fully aware of the root causes of their organization’s decision to create an Indigenous Relations position or portfolio. They first see requirements within a client’s request for a proposal to engage with and hire Indigenous members of a community; key performance indicators are weaved into contract administration to report on the number of people hired and on the number and value of subcontracts left.

Indigenous Relations[/caption]

Some may be vaguely aware of the regulatory project requirements from which socioeconomic project conditions may be directly inherited. The terms are usually negotiated by and between the project proponent and those directly affected communities, under varying federal government levels or regulatory supervision (or lack thereof).

Suppose that remains to be the full extent of the managers’ understanding. A corporate direction lacking vision ensues, typically resulting in awkward attempts at rudimentary “beads and feathers” exercises to procure a check-the-box understanding of a culture, usually accompanied by underlying resentments towards the perceived-to-be misplaced preferential treatment given to First Nation, Metis, and Inuit communities.

After a while, the manager notices that fostering and maintaining these relationships takes time and resources and often travels to remote locations. The task is too big for anyone to run from the “corner of their desk.” This is how one feels, while there is a lack of understanding of the “why” and a lack of appreciation of the larger picture and importance of the relationship.

Eventually, that part of the senior leaders’ portfolio becomes an irritant. Sadly, it is often under these circumstances that the process of delegation ensues.

Selection and Placement on the Org Chart

Once an organization decides to recruit an Indigenous Relations resource, the selection criteria are often initially driven based on several potential attributes such as:

  • capacity for relationship building,
  • reflecting the representation of a particular group or community, and
  •  level of position and compensation level (how much does the organization want to invest in this).

Often the exercise fails to source someone:

  • a representative of and/or with intimate knowledge of the sources, history and communal experience of colonialism,
  • with an understanding of the ongoing inequity, barriers, and intergenerational harm both generally in Canada and with the communities directly involved, together with
  • the skill and experience required to operate and effectively navigate corporate organization structures.

This is a tall order, indeed. We must note that often those who have the skills above have likely overcome tremendous barriers themselves and may have their own trauma stories (we will touch on this again later).

The good news is that choosing to walk this path will introduce leaders to some of the most unique, strong people they will ever meet. Once onboarded, Indigenous staff/leaders will need significant direct leadership support and the whole organization’s support. We must note that unlike safety, which over years and years has become embedded and ingrained into the fabric of organizational culture, with safety representatives providing primarily educational and technical support; Indigenous relations resources are at first, in a sense, behind enemy lines and face hostility when attempting to introduce the required changes.

Where an Indigenous resource is installed into an organization as a dedicated but isolated resource, that resource must have a direct or at least a dotted-line reporting relationship to executive leadership levels. They must have open and ongoing access to this support. We can point to examples where Indigenous relations resources have been successful without this direct support. Still, those individuals and circumstances are remarkable – as most will agree, repeatable success cannot bank on the remarkable. Therefore, we recommend installing the executive-level supports upfront. The following describes what happens to resources installed absent such supports to emphasize this point.

Who in Their Right Mind Would Want Their Organisation to Run Like This?

Because of the unintended consequences and further potential harm caused by getting it wrong, it’s worth investing in understanding where most organizations are and how they start this journey. Particular challenges are unavoidable parts of the process, and certain of the missteps we’ve noticed, have been self-imposed.

Most organizations are not capable of going directly into an embedded/integrated reconciliation result; most organizations are large enough that it is going to take a cultural shift. Similar to how the safety culture eventually became woven into the fabric of most modern management systems, heavy lifting is required by the subject matter expert(s), Indigenous peoples themselves, with executive support. Before it becomes decentralized, it must start with a dedicated resource, which typically means it is a resource that moves alongside and among departmental areas cross-functionally.

While this makes the individual agile, it also can make the Indigenous staff/leader isolated and exposed to organizational friction and interpersonal hostility.

Literature supports the notion that where individuals have experienced trauma in their life, potential health impacts associated with prolonged interpersonal hostility at work may be exacerbated more so – absent support. Recall that there is likely a correlation due to existing present-day colonial forces and intergenerational trauma, the trauma that many subject matter experts secured as the organization’s Indigenous relations resource has faced and may continue to face. So if the Indigenous relations resource is without support, while in prolonged hostile and socially isolated environments, that individual’s sympathetic nervous system takes over, creating real psychological and physiological effects that inhibit their digestive system and increases their heart rate, leading to an over-activated nervous system which is associated with:

  1. emotions of fear and rage
  2. enhanced negative psychological bias
  3. increased attention to harmful stimuli, and
  4.  perception of ambiguous situations as negative

Essentially Indigenous peoples may exist in a fight or flight state of being while at work when that workplace is hostile. If much of a person’s time is spent over-activated in this sympathetic state, it taxes the nervous system. Eventually, the person will crash. While in a “crashed” state, emotions of blame and depression may dominate. Without intervention, this leads to health concerns, behaviour concerns and ultimately, turnover of its Indigenous relations resource. This likely leads to a one-step forward, two-steps back level of progress in developing a supportive reconciliation culture.

What leader in their right mind would intentionally roll out a plan that would lend itself to this result? In our experience, none. And further, good leaders have a genuine interest in protecting and supporting their people.

Some Less Than Obvious Supports

Senior leadership can support by shouldering some of the burdens of overcoming change inertia by visibly sponsoring broad-based and meaningful culture awareness training (like the blanket exercise), followed by setting the precise tone of where the leadership wants to take the organization while ensuring Indigenous staff/leaders are the resources to help achieve that objective. Formally adopt the Truth and Reconciliation’s Calls to Action.  This will help reduce unnecessary friction at the outset.

Frequent meetings with the Indigenous staff/leader are recommended. Don’t rely solely on the individual initiating meetings with senior leaders. Use the early meetings to establish a supportive rapport before significant issues arise.

Make space to attend to holistic needs and encourage the person to book focus/decompression time. The Indigenous staff/leaders’ office and surrounding area (to and from the office) must be a safe place to offer meaningful exchanges with others at work.

Encourage attendance at conferences and workshops. The organization’s Indigenous relations resource may feel isolated and alone. Offering opportunities to attend conferences and workshops will allow resetting of perspective, refocus and recharge as the person gets to spend time with colleagues who understand precisely what they are going through.

13 Years Married: Still pained to see my wife profiled

13 Years Married: Still pained to see my wife profiled

by | Mar 8, 2018 | Colonialism, Equity, Harassment, Human Resources, Indigenous, Labour Market Update, Recruitment, TRC 92 (ii), Welcoming, Workplace Respect

Sam Kemble: Commentary

When my wife and I were courting, I stole her away from her family for the first time one Christmas to share that part of the Holiday Season with my family. It was a big deal. We were sending the signal to everyone; this is serious. You better get to know this woman because she is amazing and will be in our lives for a long time. Beth wanted to get just the right gift for my mom. She was slightly anxious and went to a prominent store in downtown Edmonton to find something special. She chose a beautiful scarf. Being quite excited, she showed me her selection when we got together that evening. It was wonderful. My mom would love it. She did love it, both the scarf and the gesture.

But then something else was shared. Beth told me of her experience in the store. She was followed around by the staff as though they felt she was going to steal something. I was furious. I had frequented the same establishment and had never been treated that way. I did not even know Beth’s ethnicity when we started dating. On numerous occasions, people have told us that she clearly has “First Nation traits.” Being discriminated against is something I have never experienced. And before that, I have never experienced discrimination vicariously through a loved one. I was filled with indignation. To Beth, my naivety was showing. At the time, I believed that racial profiling was more of an outlier phenomenon in today’s society. It was reserved for fringe groups, in any event, not mainstream. I asked Beth, “Why are you not angry?”

“If I choose to be angry about that, I would be angry all the time.” she said.

The statement hit me on several levels. All the time? Does it happen all the time? She is desensitized because of a lifetime of similar experiences? How far off base am I to have believed this type of thing does not happen?

Then I started to notice interactions. How sometimes I would be treated differently when going places with my brother-in-law, how he would be treated, or how Beth might be treated when we were out. It struck me because it was unusual and foreign to me. Eventually, concerning these (off-duty personal life) interactions, I started to become desensitized; the interactions did not inspire the same emotion in me. I still do not know if that is a good or bad thing.

In my own mind, I started assessing the order of magnitude. In some cases, it seemed to be a case of awkwardness, not hateful and not even overtly judgemental, just awkwardness. In other situations, there was a sense the individual carried with them an initial pre-judgement, often softening as the interaction with Beth continued. In other cases, there was an unmoving pre-judgment, seemingly based on Beth’s ethnicity. And in other cases, there was what appeared to be hate. For the time we went for our sunny Sunday walk for a coffee, pushing Natanis in the baby carriage. While walking down a side street, a stranger in a pick-up squealed around the corner, coming into proximity of us. He yelled, “Go back to the Reserve!”. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. To us, those are just unexplainable.

Being in the human resource field and the labour relations field, I wonder what kind of impact this has on opportunities for promotion, being put in ad hoc leadership positions, or being given opportunities for meaningful work on committees. How does this impact the voices that get heard generally, across industries and sectors in Canada? Many first-opportunity decisions are often based on first or surface impressions. Final decisions are often ultimately made in-camera, where often the only person in the room with the decision-maker is the decision-maker himself or herself. Unless a person does not have a personal bias or has personal feelings but compartmentalizes them away from the decision at hand (and I believe some professionals are capable of doing that), interviewers’ and decision-makers beliefs impact those decisions.

I have also considered whether it is different for Inuit, First Nation and Metis; versus people associated with another visible minority group in Canadian society. I can’t help but feel that discrimination continues to happen to people of all ethnicities. For those who do have a prejudice against aboriginal people (I have zero science to support this but believe it anyway); generally, there seems to be more emotion and conviction attached.

During my career, I have come to a few answers from a global perspective. I do what I can to ensure it does not happen in “my house.” Professionally, “think globally and act locally” is all I have accomplished to date.

“Why am I writing this today? “

Today my wife was denied service at a coffee shop. A coffee shop that is attached to a downtown library in our hometown, Edmonton. Beth had just finished having lunch with some former work colleagues. She was settling in to have a coffee and work on her doctoral research while she waited for the time to pick Natanis up from school. What kicked off the interaction initially? Beth wanted to buy a coffee and a sandwich for a homeless person. The store insisted the homeless person leave the premises. Then, they also denied service to Beth, even to buy her own coffee. And finally, they insisted Beth leave the store and called the police, giving the description, of a 5″6 aboriginal woman.

“It has been ten years since Beth bought that scarf for my mom. I am usually not angry about this sort of thing…but today I am. “

As human resource professionals and labour relations professionals, and as Canadians, we need to do our part not to minimize and to guard against profiling in our organizations and across the stakeholder groups with whom we interface.