TTC wins Best Diversity Program national award

Today (Nov. 4) the TTC announced that it was named winner of the Best Diversity Program, a national award for outstanding achievement in diversity, awarded by Canadian HR Reporter and Thomson Reuters Canada Limited.

Last year, the TTC renewed its commitment to diversity and inclusion by centralizing and expanding the role of its Diversity and Human Rights Department to clearly define the TTC’s strategy to achieve diversity and inclusion goals across the organization.

Video: Best Diversity Program - 2016 National HR Awards

“Our program focuses on raising awareness, building a foundation of knowledge and developing programs and initiatives to support all diverse groups,” said Karen Kuzmowich, Manager of Diversity. “It encourages employees to use a diversity and inclusion lens when making decisions in their day-to-day workplace activities.”

The TTC’s Diversity and Inclusion Program includes:

• A new Diversity and Inclusion corporate policy.
• A new Diversity and Inclusion Training Program, including in-class training sessions for managers that address inclusive leadership skills, unconscious bias and cultural competency.
• A Diversity and Inclusion Lens to assist employees apply a special filter to their work to see things from perspectives different than their own. The TTC is one of the first transportation agencies to develop a Lens for the workplace.
• A 35-page Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit, which complements the Lens by including a set of questions to prompt employees to think about diversity and inclusion in their daily work, and to help employees work together more inclusively.
• Mentoring and professional development training programs.

“The TTC will continue to build upon this program rolling out the next phase by developing individually tailored programs for groups that would benefit from additional diversity and inclusion support,” said Valerie Albanese, Head of Diversity and Human Rights.

The program also involved a reworking of human resource policies to align with the needs of a diverse workforce of more than 14,000 employees. The diversity and inclusion policy supports the TTC’s People Objective for “an empowered, customer-focused workforce that values teamwork, pride in a job well done, and an organization that actively develops its employees.”