Chandos: Inclusion is the Norm

Popular company review site – Glassdoor – says that 67% of job seekers consider workplace diversity an important factor, and more than 50% of employees want their companies to be more inclusive.

Since Chandos’ inception, the commitment to diversity and inclusive hiring has been prevalent. We are strongly committed to equality and strive to fairly represent all groups.

How? For one, we recently participated in B Corp’s Inclusive Economy Challenge with set goals to improve our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts through strategies such as initiating a Lean-In women’s affinity group; providing cultural awareness and unconscious bias training to staff; and taking steps to hire and promote women into roles that are traditionally male dominated.

We also have partnerships with several community organizations, such as:
– Embers – which offers opportunities for economic and employment growth to transitional workers;
– Buy Social Canada – which collaborates with businesses to create tools for social procurement;
– and Building Up – which helps individuals positively contribute to economic diversity and growth. 

Furthermore, we are strong supporters of indigenous entrepreneurship. Whether it’s through our employee and partner relations, or through community initiatives, we strive to strengthen our partnerships, create prosperity, help develop local economies, and honour local cultures.

We have several projects on or near treaty land and have worked with clients and indigenous communities to encourage inclusive hiring practices. Through our work with NorQuest College, for example, we’ve been able to partner with the Alberta Indigenous Construction Career Centre (AICCC) – a unique service designed to connect prospective indigenous workers with employers recruiting for construction related careers. We’ve trained and employed several AICCC students, some of whom are still working with Chandos today.

Although we have strong indigenous representation across our organization and are above the standard benchmark for the percentage of women and at-risk youth in the construction industry, our goal is to align with Canada’s demographics. According to Statistics Canada, in 2019, approximately 47% of women over the age of 25 represented the country’s workforce. Indigenous groups made up more than 3% of the workforce and landed immigrants made up nearly 18%.