Organizational strategy, internal culture, policies and systems

To ensure that our internal culture, policies and systems support an anti-racist, diverse and inclusive workplace, Oxfam Canada needs to articulate and demonstrate this goal in our organizational and operational strategies. We also need to examine our internal culture, policies and systems and identify where and how we need to change.

Transformation

Acknowledging the experiences of our staff is essential to growing as a feminist, antiracist, diverse and inclusive organization. Oxfam Canada’s present and past staff must feel heard, valued and respected. This is why we commissioned the independent study “Centering Accountability and Transformation – April 2022 JEDI report”, which examines the personal experiences of current and past (last five years) Oxfam Canada staff members, identifies systemic barriers to creating a culture of JEDI in our organization and provides recommendations to address the barriers.

The report identified Oxfam Canada’s strong commitment to JEDI, anti-oppression, feminist values and decolonial practice, but it also uncovered several challenges and important shortcomings in our organization:

• Missing infrastructure for sustainably embedding JEDI principles.

• Inconsistent application of feminist values.

• Organizational priorities, culture and practices significantly impacted by donor/funding relations and governance structures.

At the core of these issues, the report identified a) paternalism, white saviorism and white feminism both internally within the organization’s culture and practices, and externally with respect to the communities being served and b) colonial legacies, culture and practices of Oxfam Canada and Oxfam International and rooted in the international development/aid sector.

The report uncovered that current and past staff have experienced racism and oppression in the workplace at Oxfam Canada. Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) staff shared having routinely experienced covert or socially acceptable forms of prejudice, discrimination and oppression that feed into a culture of fear of reprisals. Examples included a lack of followup on accommodations required by staff; the minimization or dismissal of lived experiences; the dismissal of people’s ideas and the exclusion of people from relevant processes after they

Oxfam Canada’s work to grow as an anti-racist, feminist and inclusive organization raised concerns. Respondents also reported experiencing microaggressions and being labeled as troublemakers after raising concerns. The report also highlighted how current and past staff felt that there was limited clear accountability and inconsistencies in dealing with issues when concerns were raised.

We must address our shortfalls. The consequences for not addressing them are too significant.

Progress highlights

Oxfam Canada took some important steps to support the refocusing of our organizational strategy, internal culture, policies and systems. We understand that baseline research and data are essential to monitoring progress. To that end, Oxfam Canada undertook several research efforts: on Oxfam Canada’s work to grow as an anti-racist, feminist and inclusive organization

• We designed and launched our first demographic profile survey, providing vital information about the multiple identities of its staff.

• We commissioned the “April 2022 JEDI report” which outlined the experiences of past and present Oxfam Canada employees.

• We internally conducted an initial analysis of our work against the Center for Global Inclusion’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks. Oxfam Canada will continue to monitor our annual progress against the benchmarks with the hope of achieving a rank of progressive or higher in all categories by 2025.

From a human resources perspective, Oxfam Canada created a new Deputy Executive Director position mandated with advancing the organization’s commitment to growing as a feminist, anti-racist and inclusive organization. We adopted a new Board Composition and Nomination Policy, committing to improving board diversity. We are also working toward creating regular opportunities for Board Members to feed into the direction of our work on anti-racism and JEDI and identifying appropriate training and support needed for Board Members. Each department and the senior leadership team has developed an anti-racist and JEDI plan to be updated annually, and there are JEDI-specific goals integrated in our Performance Management System for all staff.

As an organization, we signed on to the Cooperation Canada sector wide anti-racism framework which outlines key commitments for change in administration and human resources; communications, advocacy and knowledge management; and program design, monitoring and evaluation.

Starting in 2023, Oxfam Canada will begin reviewing our internal policies and practices related to board and staff recruitment, professional development and management through a JEDI and anti-racism lens.