Powering Diversity

CLIENT

Ontario Power Generation

Challenge

Build a learning experience to mobilize the implementation of Ontario Power Generation’s new Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.

As one of the largest electricity generators in North America, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) employs more than 10,000 people from diverse backgrounds, professions and trades. The company promotes a culture of respect as an essential factor for organizational success. To further its commitment to ensuring a safe and healthy work environment, OPG developed a new Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to be rolled out organization-wide.

OPG wanted new methods they could use to implement the strategy reliably and effectively. Dialectic was asked to help execute a key component of the new strategy: a training program to help employees understand the concept of implicit bias and its effects on organizational health.

Solution

A dual-purpose training program to reduce implicit bias in the workplace and empower leaders to operationalize all aspects of the new strategy.

Our design team designed an evidence-based learning experience that would not only reduce implicit bias at OPG, but also inform strategic implementation going forward. We began by researching the nature of implicit bias and its effects on diversity and inclusion in large organizations like OPG. We then researched empirically supported tactics that would be effective in deploying OPG’s diversity programming.

We created an innovative in-person learning experience that leveraged tools from Harvard University’s “Project Implicit” program, challenging participants to explore their own unconscious biases. Through an interactive and self-reflective process, employees were exposed to the systemic and invisible nature of implicit bias in the workplace. Participants then worked collaboratively to develop techniques and strategies for challenging implicit bias through diversity programming.

Result

OPG implemented their new diversity strategy and identified best practices for the continued development of diversity programming.

Through the interactive learning experience, OPG gained a new understanding of the otherwise invisible force of implicit bias. Employees reported high engagement in the process and a deeper appreciation for barriers to inclusion and diversity in the workplace.

Following the training session, we analyzed data collected from participants and generated a report identifying the top five evidence-based techniques that would be most effective in implementing the remaining components of OPG’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. We also provided a detailed summary of best practices for increasing diversity in the workplace.

Armed with a highly engaged workforce and concrete recommendations for continued , implementation, OPG now had the tools and momentum to move their diversity programming forward.

“I got the impression from an early stage that the Dialectic team truly cared about OPG’s success and the success of our employees rather than remuneration.”

Ralph Chatoor

Manager Regulatory Affairs (Acting) and Co-Chair of the Pickering Nuclear Diversity Committee

Powering Diversity

CLIENT

Ontario Power Generation​