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The working group

The working group was made up of volunteers from each of the 4 units within FINS and came from all different employee groups (different roles, unions, including co-op students). While inevitably, some members had more relevant life experience or applicable training to the work, the committee benefited from being made up of individuals with a variety of levels of expertise and knowledge relevant to the work. Different members were able to bring project, committee, or leadership skills to add context to existing practices or processes and this committee provided volunteers opportunities to use skills that may be outside of their usual job description and work commitments.

Using the tools

After reviewing the toolkit resources, Catherine designed a condensed 5-week program to set up the working group and arrive at clear departmental level priorities. The short timeframe, with weekly meetings, was developed to maintain the momentum and engagement of the working group. Here’s the summarized process:

• Week 1: Working group introductions, roles and ways of working
• Week 2: Implementation framework
• Week 3: Discuss EAP goals and use worksheet to identify which action FINS can contribute to
• Week 4: Brainstorm activity ideas
• Week 5: Prioritize activity ideas

Catherine used three different tools over the 5 weeks to build out meeting agendas packed with discussion questions and activities: Equitable Engagement for Implementation, Your Unit in the EAP and Ideating and Prioritizing Activities.

Outcome

After the working group wrapped up their 5 weeks of meetings, they generated a list of over 50 activity ideas. They prioritized this list down to 6 projects that they presented to FINS leadership (directors, managers and supervisors). This leadership group chose two of the projects to start with while the rest remained medium- and long-term goals.

Next steps have involved building separate working groups to begin work on the top priorities – the first focused on increasing senses of belonging amongst this large and diverse department and the second, on improving onboarding practices for new employees. The rest of the Implementation Framework will support this ongoing work.

Learn more

For more details and to learn about Catherine's key takeaways and tips for others thinking of leading this process in their units, read the full case study. Connect with Catherine at cnightingale@uvic.ca to learn more about Financial Services implementation of the Equity Action Plan.