Reducing the “Inequalities Footprint” of organizations and focus on inclusion at work
As the Observatoire québécois des inégalités states, “Inequalities generate their share of problems for society, democracy and the economy. At their current level, inequalities within developed countries increase stress, are detrimental to well-being, and undermine equal opportunity, social mobility, and economic growth.” ¹ Often, these inequalities are maintained and may even originate within organizations through their policies, management practices, and culture.
Reducing inequalities leads to better performing organizations
By addressing the issue of inequalities experienced in the labour market, Raja Abid and Lorène Cristini lead the “Inequalities Footprint” project, winner of the Winter 2021 cohort of the Civic Incubator.
They created a footprint comparable to the carbon footprint but focused on inequalities. By doing so, the project aims to encourage organizations to address the range of negative externalities they generate and accompany them in the sustainable implementation of best practices to reduce these inequities.
In the video, Raja gives us a quick glimpse of her project and shares her insights on how the Civic Incubator training and coaching program allowed her to kickstart her initiative on solid ground.
“The Civic Incubator program takes us through the early stages of conceptualizing our projects so that we can really build them on solid foundations. Moreover, the individualized and personalized coaching allows us to go deeper into the elements of the project that we want to develop the most. In the end, you can’t improve social innovation. There’s a methodology behind it, a structure, which the pathway helped us discover.” — Raja
¹ Raja Abid (2021), Inégalités en milieux organisationnels, Montréal, Observatoire québécois des inégalités.
