The secret to making your team stronger

McMaster has been named one of Canada’s top employers when it comes to diversity. This article is part of a series about the ways in which our community is helping advance acceptance and inclusion.

There’s a colourful world map outside the UTS office in Burke Science Building. “Each dot on this map represents the birthplace or ancestral home of a member of the University Technology Services team,” it reads.

“You can see we have dots all over the world,” says Kevin de Kock, director of enterprise solutions and applications at UTS.

The map is a souvenir from a potluck last summer, organized by Sophia Holness, senior manager of Mosaic Sustainment Organization. Every one of UTS’ 100 employees was invited to bring food from their hometowns.

Usually, any department gathering has a few no-shows, but everyone turned out for this, de Kock says.

“It was like a taste of heaven,” he says. “People were trying flavours and dishes they’d never imagined could go together. It was fantastic.”

Food is a natural way to bring people together, but the potluck also showed people how rewarding it can be to try something that might be unfamiliar for one person but is commonplace for someone else.

“Suddenly people were so proud of the things that made them different,” de Kock says.

Making people feel welcome and included is a very high priority for de Kock, who started a committee that focuses specifically on equity, diversity and inclusion. The pot luck was one of several events set up to help team members learn more about their colleagues.

“It all comes down to creating an environment that accepts you for who you are, rather than trying to force you to change to fit in,” he says. “We all come from different backgrounds. Those differences make us special, they make us who we are.”

It’s not just the right thing to do, he says. “It’s been proven again and again, diversity always makes teams stronger.”

De Kock and Holness, who runs the committee now, work closely with McMaster employment equity specialist May-Marie Duwai-Sowa to organize not just events but also training and outreach to help people learn about and overcome unconscious bias and other barriers to inclusion.

In fact, McMaster is recognized as one of Canada’s top diversity employers because of its ongoing efforts to advance equity and inclusion.

Some of these efforts include undertaking an employment equity census to better understand the diversity among McMaster’s staff and faculty.

Duwai-Sowa leads training sessions for hiring managers and selection committee members in faculties, departments and organizations across campus to make sure that they give candidates of diverse backgrounds, views and talents equal consideration for positions at the university.

“So much of the talent we need doesn’t come from just one place,” de Kock says. “And if we are not inclusive, if we don’t appreciate and make an effort to embrace diversity and remove barriers, we’re going to miss out on so much.”

And there’s still work to do, he acknowledges, but de Kock says he’s delighted that McMaster is embracing diversity and making inclusion and equity a priority.

“If you create an opportunity, people will rise to it,” he says. “Every time. You just have to give them that chance.”