The Government of Canada is committed to advancing meaningful inclusion and safe spaces for LGBTQ2+ people, but admits that the path to equality and basic legal protections has been a long and difficult road. While the Human Rights Act now protects against discrimination on the basis of “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, the Employment Equity Act categories, set in 1995, don’t extend to cover LGBTQ2+.
The Government of Canada has also been working for several years to update its data collection approaches to shift away from the binary expression of “sex: Male/Female,” and instead support the expression gender as a spectrum where people can shift identities over time. But this transition in terms of terminology and adoption across government organizations is far from complete.
Efforts at a national scale are important, but there is a much more local reality for LGBTQ2+ people in the workplace. For some, being out at work doesn’t necessarily mean being out at home… or the other way around. Harmful or unsafe work environments can place enormous mental health burdens on employees, particularly when it comes to something as closely personal as someone’s gender identity or sexual orientation. It can be difficult to know what might and might not be an inclusive, safe workplace before taking a job there.
It can require a lot of courage, and sometimes involve substantial risk, for LGBTQ2+ people to choose to share the totality of their being at work. So how do organizations ensure safe space - mental, emotional, and physical - for being one’s whole self at work? It’s a complex question, with a complex answer that the Government of Canada continues to work on.
“There’s a hierarchy of needs. The first need is to find a job, but if I have the chance to choose, I would choose a place where I can be out at work, even over a higher salary. Growing up in the closet, you develop this constant “looking over your shoulder” behaviour that becomes second nature. You’re constantly scanning, worrying, and afraid, and you live like this for the rest of your life. It’s a constant, perpetual stress. Finding a workplace where you can be safely out, and don’t have to always be watching what you say or do, is so important in reducing that fear.”
Here are some of the small steps our own team has taken to advance this effort.
The team itself: Talent Cloud is a team that has always had strong representation from the LGBTQ2+ community, but the members of our team don’t speak for others. They can, however, call out our team when we’re about to make language choices or assumptions that aren’t inclusive, and they’re positioned to actively shape the product and the choice architecture of its features.
Visual indicators of diversity and safe space: When it comes to inclusion, a platform’s atmosphere, colour scheme, language choices, and overall vibe can make a big difference. The subtleties matter, especially for a community where many people aren’t out, and there’s a reliance on the subtleties as a form of communication. Inclusive patterning communicates the values of the platform to applicants, and by extension, the values of the Government of Canada. Inclusion is by design, not by accident, and that means making sure there’s a chance for people to provide input at early design stages, not just on final products.
Prioritizing alternatives to traditional education: The Indigenous community isn’t the only user group that reported concerns and challenges with the standard language used to describe education requirements for GC jobs. The work the Talent Cloud team did on emphasizing equivalent experience (as far as policy permits) for various positions meant a lot to users we spoke to who self-identify as members of the LGBTQ2+ community. They referenced that because of the challenges of identity and non-acceptance in key education years, many LGBTQ2+ kids don’t get to or chose not to follow the standard education path that begins in high school and goes up through university degrees. These people may have a lot of high demand skills and lived experience, so accepting equivalencies beyond formal education creates tangible opportunities.
Skill requirements instead of prescriptive, detailed experience criteria: Similar to feedback from other user groups, it meant a lot to have the chance to claim a skill and then share evidence of the skill that included personal learning, non-traditional education, and community experience. When lives follow non-traditional paths, a system needs to be able to recognize and value non-traditional experience if it is to be truly inclusive. For those who’ve spent time living at the margins, there’s a world of difference between job applications that require “analytical thinking and communication skills” and those that require “2-3 years of experience providing research and analysis in a policy role in a recognized organization, reporting to a director level or above.”
Manager Profiles: Applicants look to manager profiles to find clues about the type of boss they’ll have if they get the job, and the type of work environment that person will create. LGBTQ2+ users mentioned the value in this piece of additional information in the job advertisement, and mentioned the “scanning for subtleties” process mentioned above, where applicants searched for hints that managers would be able to provide a safe, inclusive space for employees of all genders and sexual orientations.
Choose your pronouns: This is one that is easy to do in a modern agile-built platform design, and one that Talent Cloud is actively working on testing and integrating. It means a lot to people who are sometimes misgendered or in the process of gender transition, and it gives people agency over their own narrative when crafting their profile and submitting an application.
“I have been misgendered at work. And every time it’s been a blow. I have felt humiliated in front of my colleagues. Gender expression and gender identity belongs to the individual and should never be implied.”
“Seeing a pride flag displayed on a manager’s social media profile helped me choose between two comparable job opportunities. Knowing that I could be upfront about myself and that the path had already been carved out was a huge relief for me.”
