B Corp Diversity and Inclusion Challenge: Fairware’s Kick-Off

B Corp Diversity and Inclusion Challenge: Fairware’s Kick-Off

Diversity is inviting someone to the party, Inclusion is asking them to dance.
– Vanessa Slavich

Fairware is proud to be a founding Canadian B Corp. B Corps use business as a force for good to drive change in communities. At Fairware, we became a B Corp to shore up our commitment to ethical sourcing and being an impact business. The B Corp certification process and the incredible community of business peers has helped guide us to continually improve our business, inside and out.

BLD 2016

Vancouver’s B Corp Community at the BLD Conference 2016

This year, B Corp launched an Inclusion Challenge as a call to action to the B Corp Community to improve our impact in the area of diversity and inclusion. Companies were asked to choose a minimum of three metrics from the B Corp Assessment to improve on in 2017.  

At Fairware, we decided to commit to the following:

  • Living Wage Employer – apply to become a certified living wage employer in BC
  • Professional Development – increase number of our staff who take part in professional development
  • Diversity and Inclusion – introduce training for team, update hiring and job postings to better include our commitments in this area
  • Supplier Tracking – track significant suppliers for diverse ownership (women, LGBTQ, minorities)
  • Social Hiring – Formalize our policy to hire from communities with barriers to employment

During each of our monthly staff meetings we’ll focus on these goals to ensure we are moving the dial, together.

We started the year out by taking our commitment to heart and opening our first staff meeting of the year with an exercise to share our family histories and to describe how we each identify culturally.  It was a simple but important exercise that gave each of us great understanding of each other.

Next month, our team will take part in an in-house workshop by Reconciliation Canada.

We’re inspired to be a part of this challenge and know it is a critical time to be walking the talk. Having said that, we’re also keeping our sense of humour and taking little steps where we can.

Whichever Bathroom SignAs a part of a recent office clean up and upgrade we updated our washroom signs to kick off our own inclusion challenge. Check them out next time you come for a visit.

Stay tuned for an update on our experience with Reconciliation Canada and our progress on all commitments.

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