Beyond Bias: Transforming Your Workplace into a Haven of Inclusivity and Equality

Since the shocking murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, at the hands of the Minneapolis police, the subject of systemic racism within police forces has been exposed. One would say once again. The incident has sparked widespread protests around the world, and coming out of these protests though are, are the stories. Stories of racism in our communities, In our institutions and in our workplaces? How do we fight the ignorance in our very businesses, in the culture that we as leaders set ourselves? And that's coming up next on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to Marc Haine Live where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help them work on their business, not just in their business. I'm your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. We're broadcasting here on YouTube every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Of course, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and if you're watching the replay of this here on YouTube, you can hit the subscribe button and ring the bell. That'll give you first dibs when I bring you some fresh content. As part of my community, I encourage you to drop your own comments, your own questions into the comment box here. I want people to be able to benefit from your experience as well. So go ahead and drop comments in and please feel free to share this post. Today I am here with diversity and inclusivity expert Tina Verghese. Tina was named one of Canada's top 10 notable speakers by Ignite Magazine. She is the president of T-Works and is a professional speaker and trainer specializing in diversity and inclusion. She does inclusive leadership training and work-life balance training as well. She has previously worked with the Alberta Employment and Immigration and has run her own relocation and settlement firm as well. And Tina has been the face of diversity, literally, when she was chosen to be in Dove's campaign for Real Beauty, representing beauty and diversity. How cool is that? Hey, Tina, thank you so much for joining us today.

Hi, Marc. Thank you for having me, Marc.

It's awesome. You look great, by the way. Just so you know. So before we get into today's topic, can you tell me about the work you do with businesses and organizations?

Well, solely I'm a professional speaker and trainer. I focus heavily on diversity and inclusion, cultural diversity, work-life balance. So I really heavily work essentially with helping others manage and mitigate those cultural differences that potentially can cause conflict or angst or even frustration at the workplace and really try to bridge, build bridges than walls. That's really essentially what I try to do.

Well, that's awesome. It sounds like, especially in this day and age now, it sounds like this could be a huge benefit to organizations that really want to build corporate cultures that are centered around inclusion at every level. A few months, like how long ago was the MeToo movement? Like a year ago, year and a half ago was MeToo?

Yeah, about a year and a half.

Now it's Black Lives Matter. And it seems to me that humanity now is centered on trying to figure out how to behave properly. And our topic today is fighting the ignorance, supporting diversity in the workplace. And through the recent protests, I've been shocked hearing people's stories of their experiences with racism across the country. Aside from a few people that I consider to be racial idiots, when you see something on the news and you go, ah, the person's an idiot, that's not how we behave. I didn't think racism was a problem in this country, but all these stories are really proving me wrong.

Mm-hmm.

You have a theory about that this is not about white privilege, but this is about white ignorance. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Well, I was calling it white oblivion because I truly, like yourself, where you just didn't really know that this has been existing. And I think that's why a lot of Black, Indigenous, people of color were getting frustrated because ultimately we knew that it's existed for so long. And systemic racism sadly does exist in Canada. There's historical roots. for systemic racism in Canada. So that has insidiously gone into a lot of our workplaces. It comes through in unconscious bias. So unconscious bias, you know, doesn't make us racist or discriminatory. It just makes us human. We all have unconscious biases. And there is a big difference between having an unconscious bias against somebody and being racist against somebody.

Mm-hmm.

So that's something to Okay.

So there's a couple of things that we need to— I think we need to define here. Can you define the difference between unconscious bias and conscious bias? What is the difference between the two and why are they separated?

So unconscious biases, usually we would— there's actually 170 statistically proven unconscious biases. However, we tend to focus on 7 key unconscious biases. So gender, race, religion, religion, sexual orientation, age, weight, and disability, both physical and emotional disability, where we would have potentially unconscious biases against another individual. And having those unconscious biases essentially occurs partially due to the neuroscience of our brains. So we make very quick judgment calls, very quick decisions based on Past experiences, past history, past stories, our parental upbringings, that all shapes how we make very quick decisions. But the question becomes, are we making the right decisions? Were we influenced in a way that's causing our brains to make very quick, rash judgment calls that are ultimately leading to biases against people that we don't even realize that we may have against others? I too have biases against other people that I didn't even realize.

Mm-hmm.

When you have conscious biases, well, that comes down now more to discrimination because now you're much more conscious of your, of your behavior and you're, you're still making those discriminatory calls. And racism, racism ultimately, if we were to define it, is, is when you feel your own race is superior to another individual's Race. So that comes much more from a personal level, whereas systemic racism would come more from an institutionalized or societal level.

Okay. So when you say then systemic racism versus— so the very first one you say, the individual one where it's a conscious bias, is more of the kind of individual racism, if you will. Whereas the systemic one is more based on institutional?

Institutional, societal. And some of that, you know, occurred even within our own history. Before you and I were even born, we had a lot of systemic racism in Canada. Can I give you an example?

Please.

So, you know, even in 1885, after the Canadian Pacific Railway was built, a lot of Chinese wanted to stay here in Canada. However, the Canadian government put a Chinese head tax on Chinese to dissuade them from coming into Canada. That is a historical reference of systemic racism. Obviously, a much more known one would be the residential school system. So, trying to almost obliterate an entire culture would be an example of systemic racism. In the US, one documentary I watched, and I don't know if you saw the— it's called The 13th. I don't know if you saw that one.

No.

So that one actually is about the Black systemic racism in jails. And where it even began was after slavery ultimately was abolished, they wanted to really grow the US economy. And after the Depression, they didn't know, well, who can work? Who can be those workers to work? And so it kind of shows that Within history, Blacks were being put into jail for very, very petty crimes, but ultimately they were putting them into jail because they needed a workforce to stimulate the economy and start to grow it, and they could use prisoners ultimately to build that economy back for free labor. So they weren't slaves anymore, but they weren't free, and so it really showed how even showing the vast increase of the Black population in the jail system and how that grew. And it's an interesting documentary. Obviously with anything that you watch, you should be looking at it through a critical eye.

Yeah.

But it did kind of portray that systemic racism even in the jail system. And so of course now we have a bit of a bias. Some people would be, well, so many Blacks are in jail. So therefore they must be criminals. Well, is that really the case? How did they get there in the first place? How did that all begin? And so that's how systemic racism sort of begun within our society and in our historical roots.

So we had a few months ago, so last year we had the MeToo movement and we were really talking about the kind of discrimination that is in our society for women, especially in the workplace where they're making less money than their male counterparts and that of course there's all sorts of types of aggressions or microaggressions towards women. Now with this Black Lives Matter movement kicking up, it's really bringing to the forefront that this is happening based on race. But then growing up, we had a class system more where because we lived on one part of the town and somebody else lived on a different part of the town, they were like, oh, they're from that part of the town.

Right.

And so we have this innate thing that we have to judge people. Is this who we are?

So I had a bit of an interesting background because I'm born and raised actually in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and moved to Calgary.

Oh, you're one of those. I'm one of those.

And I moved to Calgary in '94. So my cousins, though, were born in Calgary and they had a very different story. Growing up than I did, so I certainly experienced much more racism as a kid than I did growing up in Saskatoon. And a lot of I'm Indo-Canadian, so a lot of Indians went to Saskatoon when they immigrated from India. They went to Saskatoon as professionals, so they went as doctors, professors, accountants. You know, they were for the most part in professional industries, whereas you know in some city centers they were going as cab drivers. They were going as as you know. pizza delivery, whatever it might be, working at Subway.

Sure.

And so there was a bit of a perception that, you know, there were more labourers, whereas the perception in Saskatoon was, well, the Indians are here as professionals. So I had a very different experience growing up in a sense than my cousins, because my dad came here as a physician. He was a neurosurgeon. So my, you know, I didn't grow up with that bias that Indians may not be at the socioeconomic level and therefore people have a bias with it, but I do very much remember being a kid and being called a Paki all the time. You know, that was just part of my history. That was just part of growing up. I will say that I am blessed not to, from my knowledge, experience blatant racism as an adult. I don't get a lot of that, but I can tell you very honestly, I experience microaggressions All the time. Basically on a monthly basis, I can count how many microaggressions—

So could we define microaggressions? Because again, this is something that's coming up. I had never heard the term until the Black Lives Matter movement kicked up. And now in all the reports I'm hearing from people who are reporting their stories, that they talk a lot about Like aggression in some more of being kind of very people being very forward with it. And then there's this idea of microaggression.

So what is that? Right. So I don't want to get too stuck in semantics and I feel people are getting a bit stuck in the definitions. And being a professional speaker and trainer, I find the easiest way to teach anyone on something is to give you an example.

Sure.

And so a perfect example of a microaggression would be to ask me, Where are you from? And then they'll pause and they'll say, but where are you really from? So it's now making me being othered. I've been othered now because you've asked me where I'm from. I will often get, well, you're so articulate. You're so articulate. And they assume that I'm going to have an accent, not recognizing I was born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, educated at the university, at the U of S. So That would be a typical microaggression. If you were to ask a Black woman, oh, your hair just looks so beautiful. It doesn't look all kinky. So it's almost— another one might be, oh, I don't see color. Well, that would be— people say that. And I wrote a blog about this because I realized during my entire childhood and youth and adulthood, people would say, Well, I don't see your color. I don't see it. And they would say it as a compliment. When in essence, well, what is that really saying? You're saying that I don't see your color, therefore you're no different than me, but somehow does that mean that my color is something to be ashamed of? Basically, when you offer a microaggression, it's almost like giving someone a compliment when in essence it's a backhanded insult.

That's a good one.

And that would be the easiest way to define what a microaggression is, that you're saying it as a compliment when in essence it's not. It's almost insulting, but it's It's so subtle that sometimes people don't actually catch that you've actually othered someone. And so that would be what a microaggression ultimately is.

Since all this happened, I've been doing a lot of research because one of the challenges I had was, like, I didn't— in my world, racism doesn't exist, right? In my world, everybody's treated equal. In my world, we respect one another. And to sort of see all this and to hear all these stories and then to listen to the stories of people, you know, for instance, somebody was talking about the microaggression they felt. And they went— they would go into a store and go shopping. And right away they'd see that, you know, they'd be in an empty aisle and then a clerk would come in and all of a sudden start shifting stuff around. And it's like no matter where— it seems like no matter where they felt they were going, people were pegging them because of their skin color. On, oh, this person needs to be watched.

Right. But the difference is in your world, you wouldn't be watched. And that's where I talk a little bit about that white oblivion, that you wouldn't realize the privilege that you have because you were oblivious ultimately to it because you didn't receive the same treatment.

Exactly.

Whereas it's very hard to prove, you know, if you're a person of color, Indigenous, Black, and you're walking into a store and you kind of feel like you're being watched, but you can't really prove it. And who are you supposed to tell?

Exactly.

You know, who are you supposed to— it's not like you're going to put that on a Google review or Yelp, you know, that's— but you know that it's there and it's a bit blatant. I know for myself it's a bit more subtle. You know, I'll go into small town Alberta or small town Saskatchewan and I'll be the only visible minority walking around. So it's not discrimination, it's not— it's just feeling so different because most people that are white would never have a clue what that feels like to walk into a church or to a restaurant and be the only person of color. If you're gay, you know, no one's gonna know that looking at you per se, but you can't hide the color of your skin. And so it's just something that you're always very aware of and you do feel it sometimes. And it's not even that people are treating you differently, but I will promise you they're looking at you.

Right.

You know, I can say very honestly, when I walk into small towns, people are always like, oh, that's the doctor's wife. And because I don't want her to look bad, I just say hi because they're like, hi. And I'm like, okay, well, hi. Like, I— it happens all the time. I know that they think I'm the doctor's wife. And so it's just— I just play the part because I just don't want her to be rude or impolite.

Yes. Do you have like a big diamond that you flash in them to prove that, you know, you're the doctor's wife? It's like, oh yes, we make tons of money.

No, but I just don't want her to seem like she's being rude in the small town.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess part of that is that we have to be able to pick our battles, right? Like you were saying, like if you're in a store and somebody, a store employee starts following you around, I mean, you could call it out, you could step up and you yourself can get aggressive about it. You could shove it off because there's nobody to talk about it. Then we stopped talking about it. I think this is part of what our problem is, is that even though we heard that racism exists, like I remember 8 months ago, 9 months ago, that there was a lady who said some really disparaging remarks to an Indian gentleman, something about a parking space. She started screaming off, go back to where you come from. She was chastised on social media. Really, I think she was fired from her job. There was all sorts of ramifications for her behavior.

Right.

I think from the perspective of being a middle-aged white guy, it was like, well, we're doing something about it. We're telling the world that this is not acceptable to us.

Right.

And yet, we're still hearing all these stories. What concerns me the most, I think, is within organizations. Because when I hear that somebody felt that within a job that they had, that they felt that they were discriminated against, that they didn't get the opportunities their white counterparts got, or women didn't get the opportunities that the men got and so on. I think this is a little bit of a challenge for us.

For sure.

Because it's, you know, I know that we build our businesses on culture. And I remember reading one remark, I think it was on LinkedIn, and one lady was talking about racism in her company. And she said that leadership and human resources are turning a blind eye to what's going on. And so what I'm understanding from our conversation right now is that Unless they actually brought it up to human resources or to the leadership, they might not have known that anything was going on.

No. And I'm not sure if they're turning a blind eye or not. I think there's a lot of unconscious bias that occurs at the workplace by everybody. And again, recognize that means that you're not even aware that you have these biases. And so, you know, saying someone isn't a culture fit, for an organization because they interview with you and maybe they have an accent or they don't answer the questions the way that you expected them to. They don't sell themselves. They don't present in a way that you assume they should with confidence or selling themselves. But that's a very North American concept. Selling ourselves is very individualistic. It's part of the North American culture. In the collectivist culture, which is more of where our TopSource immigrants are coming from, they're not taught to sell sell themselves. They believe in harmony and they believe in group work and they believe in teamwork. So for them to sell themselves, that would be really hard. And so all of a sudden they're deemed not a good culture fit or someone deems them as someone that doesn't really remind them of themselves. And so they are ultimately screened out before they're screened in. But is that racism? No. Is that discrimination? No. But it could very well be unconscious bias because that particular frame of reference would be what we call affinity bias. When we hire in our own image or when we hire people that remind us of ourselves, not recognizing that maybe we need to understand a little bit about our own population, recognize that, you know, maybe Canadian human resource practices to a degree are flawed, that we really have to look at much more inclusive practices even when it comes to interviewing people because we might be asking questions that are very Canadian-type questions, setting up people that were born in Canada for success, without realizing that we might need to look inward to see if the questions even that we're asking are adapted and accommodating and being inclusive, because we can really do a bit of a deeper dive even of those questions to ensure they're inclusive.

Yeah.

There's no question that statistically, people with ethnic-sounding names, women, even if you put something like, parent-teacher volunteer, that could be used against you as an unconscious bias that people might have, and they're going to chuck your resume out. So that exists, and people aren't even aware of their own unconscious biases that they may have. They might look at someone that writes parent-teacher volunteer, male or female, and decide, oh, this person is in childbearing age, or this person is putting their—

Has young ones at home.

Has young ones at home. I don't want someone with young ones at home in a position that requires a lot of travel. Well, that's unconscious bias that somehow you've managed to be screened out before you've been screened in. So we may not even be aware that we have those biases in place.

So is there any way then that we can look— is there any process that we could do to take a look at our culture, to look at our own internal unconscious biases and start kind of Challenging how we think and why we think? Like, how are we going to become more accountable for how and what we think?

So I have a keynote called What Is Unconscious Bias and a workshop called What Is Unconscious Bias, and I give people homework. Big believer of self-discovery work, which obviously you're doing a little bit on your own, Marc, but not everybody is as interested in doing that self-discovery. And there's no way you can become part of the solution if you don't really take a mirror to yourself and be honest with yourself and accountable and vulnerable to recognize what your own biases are. So one of the leading authorities in unconscious bias, if your viewers or listeners were to Google Harvard Implicit. So Harvard Implicit, so implicit bias and unconscious bias is the same thing.

Mm-hmm.

So Harvard Implicit is one of the leading authorities in unconscious bias testing. And anybody and everybody can take those tests. There's about 30 of them, probably takes 15 to 20 minutes each, and uncover where you may have your biases. So I'm not a big believer of, you know, it's not like Breaking Bad. You can't break bias, but you can manage and mitigate, but mitigate and manage those biases. But you can't manage those biases unless you can identify them.

Right.

And so once you do that work, and that work can be very vulnerable work because sometimes we don't want to admit that we may have biases against other people. But once you're recognizing that, oh, I do have a bias against people that are obese, I didn't realize it. Well, once you realize it, well, then you're gonna check yourself a little bit and go, okay, you know, is this person not applicable for the job, or is this person? Am I asking questions? Am I collaborating with others? When we make decisions by ourselves, that's a big way to create that bias because we're making those judgments, decisions singularly. And so, even collaborating with other people, if it's on a big project or interviews and looking at peer interviews, whatever it might be, that's going to help manage and mitigate those biases as well.

Very cool. Part of the challenge is, you know, I know a lot of people in business and I don't know any business owner that I know of anyway that would tolerate racism within their organization. And yet, when I've been doing my research, I read about an assistant professor out east who says that daily she's facing microaggressions. She knows that when you're in post-secondary, the students get to rate their teachers. And she knows that teachers of color or of a visible minority they get rated lower than their white counterparts. Because she is a Black woman, she gets lower scores than white women who get lower scores than white men do. She sees this all based on her sex and her skin color. Yet, as an organization, if I'm leading an organization, this is the last perception I ever want anybody in my team to feel. So what can leaders do then now to be able to step up and change something like that?

So my favorite quote on diversity and inclusion is, diversity is who's on the team and inclusion is who gets to play. And I really believe that everyone needs to play hard and everyone needs to be accountable for that. And at the end of the day, you know, maybe this person is feeling that it's her color and gender, but I do think we have to do a deep dive. and see, is that the case or are they, you know, maybe not performing? And I am the queen of saying, I do not want to be hired— I'm a keynote speaker— I do not want to be hired because I'm a female visible minority. I want to be hired because I'm the best person for the job. I just don't want to be screened out because— or not given the opportunity because I'm a female visible minority.

Right.

So it's, you know, and I'm— we're a bit different in Canada versus the States. So in the States, we have affirmative action. you know, programs. But in Canada, we don't have that. I don't think we even need that. But we do need to be aware of diversity and inclusion initiatives. That's starting to come. That's starting to come in Canada. But I would say only large organizations in Canada, I would say in the last 3 years, have started to implement diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Hmm.

Sometimes diversity and inclusion training actually can backfire because sometimes people just feel, and I've seen it a little bit with the Black Lives Matter movement, people feel such shame and blame that they don't really want to hear. They're not open to it. And so I'm a big believer of unconscious bias training and unconscious bias awareness. When Starbucks in the States, when the 2 Black men were arrested in Philadelphia simply for going to the bathroom before their meeting and they were arrested, their manager arrested them, Starbucks implemented across the board unconscious bias awareness and training for all of their employees. They shut down Starbucks for the entire day. They didn't do it in Canada, but that's the training that they implemented, recognizing that it would probably have much more impact. So that, because that's an awareness that we take upon ourselves, that we really do that self-discovery work. So I would say that's a key piece, step 1.

Mm-hmm.

For organizations is to do a little bit of that developmental work and really call it. I'm also a big believer, you know, even with Black Lives Matter, it's not just everyone's— I've noticed a little bit of some people are feeling like they need to be silent, that they need to be muted and simply listen. And that's actually— I think it's really important that people have courageous, compassionate conversation. And across the board, everyone needs to be having those conversations. Ask questions, don't make assumptions. But if you notice, for example, you're in a boardroom, let's look at gender bias, and you're in a boardroom and a woman is speaking, it's statistically proven that men will interrupt women 7 times more than they will interrupt men.

Hmm.

If you notice someone younger or if it's a visible minority and maybe they put a thought out and no one gave them credit or someone took credit, Call it. Make sure, if it doesn't matter if the meeting facilitator or if you're a participant in the meeting, make sure that you just ensure that people get credit where credit is due. And if you notice that behavior, just speak up. I think sometimes we've taken a backseat to just speaking up and calling things, racial slurs even, jokes, jokes in the hockey rink. It's uncalled for. Just simple dialogue saying, that's not cool. That's not funny.

Yeah.

Just calling people out now, I think, this is the time to do it. I have noticed a bit of a shift. You know, this is a new story. We have had systemic racism and police incidences for how many years? I mean, this has been going on for years.

Exactly.

This isn't a new story, but I think for some reason this time it's different because it's unifying. You know, I don't think we could hide from it. It was on social media, George Floyd, you know, being videotaped. We'd heard him die. And I think we were all witness to that. So now that we've become all witness to that, We become part of the solution to that if we choose to.

Well, and I think this is an awakening. And, you know, one of the things that you said is to have these sincere conversations. You know, if you were to suggest ways for people to start talking about this, because, you know, as a white guy going up to some— a friend of mine or a colleague and saying, so, you know, what's it like to be a Black guy? Or what's it like to be East Indian? Or, you know, how's your Like, how do you start those conversations so that you have clarity in belief systems? You have— you're using the information to resolve and absolve this idea of racism and unconscious biasness. How do you get those conversations started?

I think definitely being open to having the conversations, but recognizing too If you're going to ask someone their story, make sure that you're willing to share yours.

Right.

You know, because that piece, it has to go both ways. I also think that for the most part, people are more than willing to— I think one key issue a lot of visible minorities have, or people of color, Indigenous, Black, whoever it might be, is that people make assumptions.

Right.

And rather than, you know, making assumptions, just start asking questions. You know, if you're curious, About something, rather than making those assumptions. I have yet to find a Black, Indigenous, or person of color not want you to ask questions rather than make assumptions. And I guess I would, you know, come from a place of compassion than criticism.

Right.

And an open mind versus coming from a place of a closed-minded. So really looking at that growth mindset, which I think And I think that's starting to happen as well. I don't think, you know, people are getting a bit daunted and intimidated. I gotta read this book, I gotta read this book, I gotta read this blog, I gotta listen to this. You know, I don't think we have to do all of that work, 'cause I think that too can get really overwhelming and intimidating. But, you know, look at your diversity circle. Look at your sphere of influence. Do a little check on yourself. Who are your, you know, top 5 personal friends and personal colleagues? And really do a little check there. What's the diversity that you have?

Yeah.

How many, if you're a white male, how many female friends do you have? How many people do you have in your network that are gay? How many visible minorities? And if you really want to start learning, do a bit of a check and go, huh, you know what? I do need to maybe broaden that circle. And it could start with a lunch or a dinner or a coffee with someone that you perceive as different from you. I personally find, and maybe why I call my signature keynote 50 Shades of Beige, it's not just about the color, but I find it's such a bland world. You know, and it can be so much more fun. You know that.

Yeah.

It can be so much more fun when you meet people of different ethnicities and diversities and genders and sexual orientations. You know, I have my newest friend right now is 25. I can tell you honestly, I'm not 25, but I love the generational diversity of our relationship, and I've learned as much from him as he's learned from me. So I just find that diversity is so enriching. I have a very good friend who's 66. So, you know, I love that generational diversity. I think we can learn so much from one another. So that, that is a big part of why that's so compelling.

And I love that you are the only person that I know who actually took the paint app on your phone and scanned yourself to figure out what color you are under the— is it—

It's the Benjamin Moore paint app. I am Toasted Almond. If, you know, because I'm a brown— no, I'm toasted almond. I'm a little scared of what you're going to come up.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if I was to scan myself, I'd come out like corporate gray or something. So I've not resolved myself to do that just yet. So, you know, we know that there are organizations out there who kind of have the blinders on with all this. And knowing that most people want to have really great cultures, if you wanted to suggest a kick in the bum for a business owner who didn't know what was going on but they kind of wanted to start this conversation, what would that be? What would that look like for them?

I mean, there's lots of different ways that you can engage your employees. I would say, even employee engagement surveys where people don't have to put their name and just kind of ask some questions of your employees. Like, I think you can gain a lot internally and externally. Ask your customers, you know, what would they like to see more of? I was working with a firm and it was so blatant. You know, it's a very large firm and it was a Western Canadian firm. And if you looked at the diversity, it was pretty darn minimal. I was working with the leadership team and it was all male, all white, all, I'd say, 50 and above. And it was so funny because I was the facilitator and consultant that they brought in and it was such a different dynamic. I think they really needed that balance. They really needed that. And it was so blatant. Town halls. I think town halls are great ways to Allow your employees to ask questions of leadership, but anonymously. So get those, you know, have those courageous conversations. If you're afraid to have them, ask yourself why. You know, so it just starts with conversation. You can have panels, you know, maybe bring in a panel of people, maybe have different, you know, people coming in from your community and have an open panel. With, you know, the pandemic right now, that can be done pretty darn easily virtually, and it gives It gives people opportunity. I think people want to learn. I don't personally feel people aren't kind at the end of the day. I think most people really want amazing workplace cultures that are inclusive. I just don't think they necessarily know how to get there. And so just being open to it, being open to asking your employees, where do we need improvement? I think so. I don't think we do enough of that. I think we're always looking at strategic business plans and SWOT analysis and goals. And what are we doing? Where is the goal about our employee engagement and workplace culture? It starts internally as well, and we can learn so much from one another. And I think, look at your employee turnover. Is it high? Are you doing those exit interviews and really asking the questions, why are people leaving? I know generationally, A lot of young people are really aligning their values with— if you're looking at employee retention within firms, they're really aligning their values now with companies. And we really are seeing young people and even Gen Z, they're getting really loud and really vocal on social media with what they truly believe in. And that's our recruitment. That's where we need to find those young people and we need to know how to manage So, just look at your recruitment and retention efforts and look at your employee turnover and don't be afraid to look at those numbers. And are you losing people left, right, and center? Is it high? Well, that kind of takes some inward work and really deciding, are you doing a really good job and where can you improve?

Right. And anybody who knows me knows that I'm a big fan of stay interviews as well, not just exit interviews.

Oh yeah.

And being able to sit down with your employees and doing Kind of a little bit of a report card on how you're doing as an operator to sit down and make sure that you're fulfilling all the different needs that you have because you can have quite a strong diverse workforce, but everybody's going to have different needs. And what a great way to do kind of a deep dive on how people feel about working for you, right?

Yeah, I love that concept, the stay interview. And I'm a big believer in focus groups. I do a lot of focus groups, internal focus groups. because I'm not a big believer of, you know, from a strategic level, our leadership teams are meant to be strategizing. But underneath that, operationally speaking, it's the people underneath those leaders. And so just creating focus groups, you'd be amazed at where solutions come from.

Yeah.

And so giving them a voice is very empowering. And quite frankly, it doesn't cost you a dime. You know, it might cost you the facilitator fee, but it's such a great way to come up with Sometimes those solutions come from within.

And ultimately, you end up getting free feedback, right? If you open yourself up to that honest feedback, it's invaluable and it's free.

Invaluable, but I think it's key people listen to it. I think sometimes I've seen with firms, they keep gathering all this feedback, gathering all the feedback, but they don't implement anything. There's no change, but they keep gathering it. So then the employees get tired of offering the same feedback because nothing is occurring. So if you are going to do that, with your employees and ask them for feedback. Make sure you're implementing some of what they've said or at least address it. If you're not going to implement it, make sure you're addressing the why.

Yeah, that's all really great. Hey, Tina, this has been so amazing. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. How can people get hold of you if they want to engage you, want to talk to you? I'm thinking that this might be a huge boon for you at this point because I think a lot of organizations are going to be doing a lot of self-reflection. They're going to need some help. So how can they get a hold of you?

My company is called T-Works. When I started that, it was T is for Tina, works was the goal. Luckily, and my domain, if you were looking at me for my website, is tworksforyou.ca. So a quick email, phone call, I'm going to absolutely be more than willing to have a chat. In fact, I encourage it.

Thank you so much. Again, you know, I think when we're addressing this issue, all we have to do, and I say this quite a bit in a lot of things, is all you have to do is just care just a little bit about what's going on. Care about what's going on in your organizations. Care about your people. And you'll find that you'll be able to make huge gains in building trust within your organization and alleviating some of the stressors I've always said, as leaders, our job is to alleviate stress and take the burden away from our teams. We should be taking their stress away from them, not creating it. But ultimately, that's all the time we have today. And I hope you got a lot of information out of this that you can apply to your business today. Starting today, have those conversations. Start having those town halls, those stay interviews. Start talking about the issues. Because, you know, as long as we hide them away, as long as people aren't talking about them, they're not going to get resolved. So I'd like to know what you think about today's episode. Please drop a comment in the box below. And if you think you know someone who could use this information, please go ahead and share it. Hit the share button. You know, information is power, but it's only powerful as long as you share it. And if you have If you haven't done so yet, please hit the subscribe button and ring the bell. That way you're going to be in whenever I do anything new, any fresh content, you'll get a notification. And I'd appreciate any time that you want to share information you think is valuable. My name is Marc Haine and I'll see you next week. In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.