Getting into the business of Indigenous inclusiveness

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/06/2018 (2135 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Great-West Life’s Winnipeg corporate campus is one of the last places you’d expect to see the construction of a 22-foot-high ceremonial teepee.

The fact that a company such as Great-West Life is confident enough to engage in such a display to raise awareness and appreciation for National Indigenous Peoples Day is a good example of the extent to which the business community in Winnipeg has embraced reconciliation.

There is a long way to go, but there are few who would say progress has not been made.

Amik Inc., a company that has been around since 2006 that simplifies work placement between employers and Indigenous workers — the country’s fastest-growing labour force — has been working with Great-West Life for two years now. E.J. Fontaine, founder and CEO of Amik, said, “What we see so far is very promising. There is progress being made in terms of corporations becoming aware and understanding that Indigenous people have to become part of the economy, have to be part of the workforce.”

In its commitment to Winnipeg’s Indigenous Accord signed last year, Great-West Life wants to see its workforce be reflective of its community. As Fontaine said, “With 11 per cent of the Winnipeg population self-identifying as Indigenous, that’s a lot of jobs at Great-West Life.”

Obviously, that kind of workforce transformation would not happen overnight, even though there are all sorts of indicators that more and more of that growing Indigenous labour pool are more and more skilled and capable.

“The talent pool is incredible,” said Brenda Larose, Métis founder of Higgins Executive Search (now a partner at Leaders International) and a longtime advocate for opportunities for Indigenous Peoples in the workplace.

But as companies such as Great-West Life engage in the process (in this case, with professional assistance), they are able to see some of the structural barriers. For instance, if many new recruits come from referrals from existing employees, that might preclude potential Indigenous candidates if the company did not have a sizable Indigenous cohort in its workforce to begin with.

“If you don’t see people there (like you), you might not think there is a career path here,” Larose said. 

This week, Amik is holding a National Indigenous Hiring Week with five of its clients — Great-West Life, CN, Air Canada, Bank of Montreal and Johnston Group. 

Mélanie Allair, CN’s senior counsel for environmental and aboriginal affairs, said Indigenous Peoples now represent about 4.5 per cent of her company’s workforce.

Even companies that have a track record with an Indigenous workforce can find there are accidental discriminatory barriers. The North West Company has the largest Indigenous workforce in the private sector in Canada. About 26 per cent of its management positions in Northern Canada are Indigenous and often members of the community where they work. But Edward Kennedy, the company’s longtime CEO, said the company is always looking to do better. 

“When we looked at the career path progression or lack thereof… we realized the structure was not consciously biased… in fact, we feel we are very inclusive. But because of the way we structured the store (the hiring process), there was a ceiling, practically,” he said of rigid requirements for certain kinds of experience or educational levels, when in reality, those things were not always necessary.

“The structure we had created was subconsciously or inadvertently discriminatory,” he said. “If companies are looking at diverse groups that are under-represented in the workforce, they need to peel it back a bit and see if they are structurally set up to accept them.”

Kennedy believes the same recruitment sensitivity needs to be applied in recruiting board members from the Indigenous community, something else his company likely leads the country in, with about 20 per cent representation.

Mary Jane Loustel, a former senior executive with IBM, has been working with Indigenous communities and corporate Canada since long before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She said it’s encouraging that more companies are undertaking cultural awareness training and reaching out to those communities. 

“I am optimistic the conversation is happening,” she said. “But to start the relationship you need to understand one another and build trust and engagement in a way that has to include Indigenous people in the conversation.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca