2023-2026 Inclusion & Diversity Blueprint – Community Engagement
For five weeks starting Oct. 3, 2022 we invited all Algonquin College employees to share their ideas on ways to ensure our workplaces are equitable, diverse and inclusive in order to learn what’s most important to everyone before moving ahead together. We utilized employee thoughts to inform the development of the 2023-2026 Diversity & Inclusion Blueprint (you can find the former plan, the 2019 Blueprint here: 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Blueprint). We used the ThoughtExchange platform so everyone had a chance to share their perspectives and understand what’s most important to our communities.
Each employees received an email with a link to a different question with the invitation to comment or share ideas. They were also encouraged to rate at least 20-30 of the thoughts that others shared. Participation was completely anonymous and employees were welcome to come back as often as they wanted to share new thoughts and rate new ideas.
We asked to hear employees most candid thoughts and creative ideas, with the caveat that rude or hurtful comments toward a group of people would be removed, All exchanges were confidential; thoughts were be shared with other participants, but not identity information.
Have questions about this initiative? Check out the FAQs webpage or email diversity@algonquincollege.com.
Community Conversations
Outcomes from the community conversations included:
Thoughtful, constructive and respectful input was shared with good engagement.
Generally 100+ participations were recorded each week. Total over the 5 weeks:
- 597 participants (including repeat participants)
- 557 thoughts contributed
- 10,490 ratings of others’ thoughts
.