Organizational Development and Workplace Diversity

Aligning processes with business priorities.

SDS Strategic Directions & Solutions helps organizations align their organizational processes with their strategic business priorities and attract and retain the workforce that will help them to do this. Sagietta Ramserran draws upon her interactions with professionals from over 50 countries and her life experiences with both western and eastern values and systems to leverage the power of workplace diversity to help organizations gain and maintain competitive advantage locally and globally.

Our Organizational Development Services Include

  • Rigorous analysis of organizational programs, policies, systems, competencies, and implementation procedures.
  • Collection of information to guide the development and implementation of change management initiatives and processes. Tools that we employ include questionnaires, on-line surveys, telephone surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews.
  • Identifying and updating technical competencies and national occupational standards.
  • Hands on project management to support all aspects of organizational change.

One example of an assignment to increase organizational effectiveness is the recently completed Revision of the Industry Training Partnership Accountability Framework, Industry Training Partnerships, Manitoba Competitiveness Training and Trade.

Our Workplace Diversity Services Include

  • Building an organizational culture that is inclusive of all workforce differences.
  • The effective management of diversity.
  • Supporting the implementation of employment equity initiatives.
  • Training workshops to support workplace diversity such as: Valuing Diversity, Ethno-cultural Diversity, and Intercultural Communication.

Two organization-wide workplace diversity initiatives completed include:

Revision of the Industry Training Partnership Accountability Framework, Industry Training Partnerships, Manitoba Competitiveness Training and Trade.

Industry Training Partnerships is Manitoba's main mechanism for creating partnerships between the provincial sector organizations, government, businesses, academic institutions, and community and labour organizations to address the training needs of Manitoba's workforce.

In July 2006, SDS Strategic Directions & Solutions completed a review of the Industry Training Partnership Accountability Framework with the aim to identify the critical information to be reported in a format that best meets the diversity of mandates, operational challenges, client types, and business cycles of the 14 sector organizations involved. Feedback from stakeholders was gathered through focus group and one on one interviews. In December 2006, the revised Accountability Framework was validated and rolled out at a working session with the 14 industry sector organizations.

Building the Foundation for Inclusive Workplaces and Effective Management of Diversity.

SDS Strategic Directions & Solutions designed and implemented a corporate-wide Diversity Training Initiative in 2003, for Employment and Training Services Branch, Manitoba Advanced Education and Training (ETS). Designed to lay the foundation for the effective management of workplace diversity, the Diversity Training Initiative was aligned to ETS's strategic directions. This initiative helped employees to understand their roles and responsibilities in building an inclusive workplace culture and to be more sensitive to the specific needs of clients from diverse backgrounds.

Specific project components included:

  • Conducting a needs assessment to identify the diversity training needs and to design the curriculum.
  • Designing organizational processes and strategies for implementation of the training initiative.
  • Selecting community trainers and coordinating all activities to ensure that in-classroom training and supporting instructional materials met ETS' standards.
  • Developing and delivering Diversity Awareness and Ethno-Cultural Diversity programs.
  • Coordinating the delivery of all workshops throughout Manitoba.
  • Conducting a corporate-wide audit in order to assess the effectiveness of the Diversity Training Initiative. Recommendations were presented to senior management with regard to changes necessary to reinforce the knowledge gained and to enhance the organization's capabilities to serve their clients better.

Corporate-wide Diversity Awareness Training.

SDS Strategic Directions & Solutions has designed and delivered customized diversity training for a number of clients. In 2002, we rolled out Corporate-wide Diversity Awareness Training for all employees of Assiniboine Credit Union (ACU). This one-day, interactive workshop was intended to help employees understand the forces driving the need for workforce diversity, the corresponding supportive workplace cultures, and the skills required to serve an increasingly diverse clientele. ACU has been named one of Manitoba's 50 fastest growing companies. In 2006, Maclean's Magazine named Assiniboine Credit Union as one of Manitoba's Top 10 employers and added ACU to the ranks of Top 100 employers in Canada for two consecutive years.