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An Equity Guide to Inclusive Staffing
Purpose
Guidance on inclusive staffing is hard to find. Our goal is to provide you with the information you need to support inclusive staffing.
Acknowledgement
Equity wants to acknowledge the effort made by hiring boards to create assessments that are as barrier free as possible.
Thinking inclusion in the design is a first step to ensure inclusive outcomes.
Issue
Equity remains excluded from staffing outcomes.
Employment Equity Promotion Rate Study - Three-Year Update - Canada.ca: For every period in the study, the promotion gap for public servants with disabilities widened.
Report 5—Inclusion in the Workplace for Racialized Employees (oag-bvg.gc.ca): The Public Service acknowledged discrimination in the Public Service in 1986. The Auditor General is still reporting it is an issue and the public service is making marginal gains.
Joint Employment Equity Committee (njc-cnm.gc.ca) For people with disabilities ‘the rate at which they are hired is still below the workforce availability and the rate of departures is high.’
The door to inclusion
Equity is the celebration of our differences and for lack of a better word we are diverse.
The door to inclusion is a simple fact. It is not possible to create an assessment that is 100% barrier free, for all equity. There will always be someone who encounters a barrier despite your best efforts.
The key to unlocking the door: Create a feedback loop at every step of the process where equity can identify barriers.
This will require that you:
- · Acknowledge that your assessment may have barriers you were not aware of.
- · Actively listen to understand the barriers.
- · Accept alternate evidence of competencies.
- · Act now – there is no reason to leave a competent person outside the process.
Equity’s message to hiring managers:
The public service is aware that despite efforts to design barrier free assessments, staffing outcomes are not inclusive. Not including equity is discrimination. We ask that you create opportunities for us to show our barriers and work with us to remove them. Enabling you to include our diverse talent.
Moving Forward
To assist you, equity would like to point out some of the barriers we have encountered and share guidance to remove them.
Reliance on Experience:
PSC staffing has created barriers for equity to gain experience, relying on denied experience compounds barriers.
Whether posted informally or on public service staffing sites, experience is the primary determinant of merit. Inclusion guidance suggests:
Federal Public Service Inclusive Appointment Lens – (2021) Can you focus on abilities rather than on knowledge, and experience that can be learned on the job?
Appendix 1 How to think inclusion by design - canada.ca – (2007) Do the assessment instruments focus only on knowledge and skills which could be acquired only through job experiences, and ignore other competencies and the ability to learn? For example, persons who have not had access to opportunities such as acting appointments or contract work may be at a disadvantage.
Adding qualifiers such as recent and significant:
Canada recognizes the importance of parents who raise children and temporarily leave the labour market so much that the rules for the Canada Pension Plan have been changed, yet they may not meet the needs for recent and significant because they have been out of the labour market.
Federal Public Service Inclusive Appointment Lens - Canada.ca Using specific or quantified requirements (for example, “recent experience” or “experience in the past 3 years”) may be a barrier to some candidates.
Single Source Assessments (interview or application) to screen:
Competent equity candidates often identify applications and interviews as key points that leave them out of staffing.
Fair assessment in a diverse workplace - Canada.ca (2008) No single assessment instrument can take everything into account, and candidates may react differently to different forms of assessment. Accordingly, when feasible, it is advisable to use more than one source of information, not only across different qualifications, but also for the same qualification.
Appendix 1 How to think inclusion by design - canada.ca Use multiple assessment tools so that persons have the opportunity to demonstrate their competencies in different ways.
Standardization: applying assessments in the same way to all candidates
Equity is celebrating differences. Inclusion is enabling equity to demonstrate competencies in their unique ways. If the intent is enabling those that are different to succeed, standardization applied this way will create barriers.
Fair assessment in a diverse workplace - Canada.ca When thinking about the work to be done, the manner in which it is carried out, and the work environment, it is essential to think about diverse ways in which the work can be successfully performed.
Appendix 1 How to think inclusion by design - canada.ca Use multiple assessment tools so that persons have the opportunity to demonstrate their competencies in different ways.
Guide to Mitigating Biases and Barriers in Assessment Standardization is important enough to have its own bullet. Flexibility is the key to inclusion, however even when identifying flexibility, standardization is highlighted.
Not asking probing questions
Instructions for applications and interviews often stipulate that the onus is on the candidate to fully answer all questions and that no probing questions will be made.
This is fair transparent and standardized:
Often questions are related to self-expressed experiences. Part V - Removing Barriers to the Fair Assessment of Aboriginal Peoples – example 5 (Al Fox) identifies how Indigenous People are not always comfortable discussing themselves and may not provide in depth information.
Appointment processes: how to conduct interviews - Canada.ca (2015) Asking probing or follow-up questions is a necessary component of the interview because it helps to ensure that sufficient data is obtained for all qualifications being assessed.
Reliance on national capital centricity
Indigenous people gain strength from connection to their communities.
Persons with disabilities often have local support and are not mobile.
Individuals caring for parents or children with needs may have local support and are not mobile.
Many jobs such as policy and guidance are not reliant on a specific location and can be done anywhere, offering to wider geographic areas expands the talent pool that can be drawn from.
Annual Report 2019–20: Building tomorrow’s public service today - Canada.ca The COVID-19 pandemic proves that the federal public service can successfully work virtually. A greater reliance on employees working remotely can improve our ability to reach talent anywhere in the country, and to draw on Canadians regardless of where they live. These perspectives can further increase our diversity and improve the public service as a whole.
Boards perceiving their role as teaching candidates how they can succeed next time:
Equity often feel that boards are not open to receiving additional information during informal discussions, and post boards and will even identify that equity members had requisite competencies but failed the assessment tools.
Fair assessment in a diverse workplace - Canada.ca Systematically asking candidates about their experience of the application and assessment processes, and tracking candidate performance can help to identify areas for improvement. Analyzing the experiences and outcomes of designated employment equity group members can help to identify specific systemic barriers and eliminate them in future assessment processes. (note – if it is known that there is a barrier now, the employment equity act identifies it should be addressed now).
What many boards are not aware of, was that the intent is to open the door to additional information in case there was an error in the assessment method: Nadeau v. Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development - Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board (fpslreb-crtespf.gc.ca) The main purpose of an informal discussion is to allow candidates to discuss the reasons their candidacies were rejected as part of a process. If during the discussion it is discovered that an error was made in the candidate’s assessment, the manager must take action to correct it (see Rozka v. Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2007 PSST 46; and Poirier v. Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs, 2011 PSST 3).
