Why Inclusive Teams Make Your Business Better: A Practical Guide for Employers in Canada

Meet Rubina, an HR manager from a mid-sized company in York Region (part of Greater Toronto Area). She prides herself on finding the best people possible for her company. Lately, though, things have gotten more challenging. Today, the applications coming in just aren’t what she’s looking for.

The applicants all have the same job experience, schooling and skills as the employees she already has. No one stands out. No one is bringing something different to the table.

Rubina wants to find people with different experiences and skill sets, but she’s stuck and doesn’t know where to find them or how to attract them to the company. It’s concerning because Rubina can sense change is in the air and that her company needs to think outside the box with its hiring strategies if it’s to stay competitive in modern Canada.

Many employers and recruiters feel like Rubina.

Inclusive hiring can help employers like Rubina break out of this pattern. Inclusive teams are no longer a ‘nice to have’—they are a competitive advantage for Canadian employers.

By opening your mind to larger fields of candidates you give your company more opportunities to adapt to modern Canadian and international landscapes. And, also, studies have shown that inclusive hiring practices lead to better business performance.

Keep reading to find out how all this works and how you can start forming an inclusive team today that takes your business to the next level.

Thankfully, hiring inclusive teams in Canada has never been easier.

You’ve probably noticed that the talent pool here has evolved dramatically over recent years. This is because of more workers becoming available from both overseas and from within diverse communities here at home.

• More women are entering, and re-entering, the working world than ever before.
• New Canadians and Indigenous peoples are the two fastest growing groups in Canada.
• Technological advances in AI and accessibility tools are providing work opportunities for more people with disabilities than ever.
• Thanks to protections enshrined in our Charter Rights and Freedoms, more Canadians feel safe to express their authentic selves both at home and at work.

Many employers are adapting to these developments by rethinking job design, offering flexible roles, adaptive tools, and environments that value every person’s strengths. CCSYR is here to help you become one of them.

In this guide, we will explain diversity recruitment best practices for employers, the benefits of inclusive hiring, pitfalls to avoid and examples of what is possible when a company embraces inclusivity. The guide also includes game-changing resources to help employers in Canada build and lead inclusive teams and then measure their performance.

Key Terms To Know

Before diving into inclusive hiring strategies in Canada, and ways to get the most out of your inclusive teams, it’s handy to know some key terms regarding diversity, equity and inclusion.

Accessibility: The removal of barriers to enable participation by persons with disabilities.

Bias: A preconceived judgement that influences the perception of a person or group.

Biological sex: A classification of people as male, female or intersex, which is assigned at birth depending on anatomy.

Discrimination: Treating someone unfairly because of their race, citizenship, gender, personal characteristics, etc.

Diversity: When people from a wide range of categories such as race, age, gender, abilities, are present within a group.

Equity: Fair and equal treatment of all people, through the acknowledgment of differences and making provisions to remove systemic barriers.

Gender: The classification of people along a spectrum that includes masculine and feminine.

Gender Identity: A person’s sense of their own gender, which is distinct from their biological sex.

Inclusion: An intentional process to invite participation from individuals and groups which are historically under-represented and have experienced marginalization.

Multiculturalism: The co-existence of multiple cultures, all of which have equal rights, within a society. Multiculturalism is a Federal policy in Canada as of 1988 and the signing of the Canadian Multiculturalism act.

Sexual orientation: A person’s attraction to individuals based on their biological sex, gender, or gender identity.

Now that you know what inclusivity means in practice, let’s look at how it strengthens your business.

COMING SOON: Why Hiring Women Returning to Work is a Smart Business Strategy

Five Proven Benefits To Hiring Inclusive Teams

There are many benefits to centering inclusivity on your next talent search. Below are just five examples of how inclusive teams, especially with multicultural members, can improve your business.

1. Supercharging your company’s linguistic toolbox

Imagine you’ve got a great product to sell and it would work perfectly for an Asian market. The problem is no one in the office speaks the language in that market or understands the cultural nuances of doing business there. Hiring some sort of fixer or go-between is expensive and time consuming. What if you had someone on staff who could, naturally, take the wheel in that situation?

When you bring in team members who speak languages other than English, you open up all kinds of exciting opportunities to expand and globalize your business. Having multilingual employees is one of the easiest ways to secure new customers, suppliers, and investors in foreign markets. In fact, a 2018 study from the Harvard Business Review found that companies with diverse teams are 70% more likely to succeed in growing into new markets. So, it's not just a nice-to-have—it's a smart move for growth!

CCSYR can connect employers in York Region and other parts of Greater Toronto Area (GTA) with multi-lingual talent, as well as provide English language support to help that talent integrate with a predominantly English-speaking workforces.

2. Creating an incubator for outside-the-box thinking

Imagine you're working on a project or a campaign with a team of people who all have the same background and perspective. It’s like trying to paint a masterpiece with just one colour and brush. Now, picture a team where each person brings a different experience and viewpoint to the table. Suddenly, that painting becomes vibrant and interesting and starts to catch people’s attention.

That’s the power of an inclusive teams and diverse workforce. When you bring together people from diverse backgrounds, you get a mix of perspectives that sparks creativity and problem-solving. A recent study by McKinsey & Company really drives this home. They found that companies with more women tended to outperform those with fewer women, and the same trend applied to ethnic diversity. It’s clear, having a variety of voices not only makes things more interesting, but it also drives success.

CCSYR’s Women’s Initiatives is a powerful resource for GTA and Ontario businesses interested in women’s workforce re-entry.

3. Boosting company morale

Think about a time when you felt truly seen and valued at work, like someone recognized your unique strengths and made you feel like you truly belong. It’s a game changer, right? Well, the same goes for employees from marginalized groups. When businesses make an effort to recruit people from diverse backgrounds, it shows they’re not just filling a role, they’re genuinely welcoming different perspectives and voices.

This kind of validation creates a workplace where employees feel respected and valued, which naturally leads to higher morale. And when people feel good about where they work, studies show it boosts their motivation, confidence, and overall performance. It’s like a ripple effect; starting with feeling seen and ending with a more engaged and high-performing team. On the flip side, low morale has been linked to higher rates of absenteeism, which one study said costs each workplace up to $3,600 per employee a year.

4. Making a wise and worldly workforce

Having an inclusive team is good for everyone at a given company.

Having a diverse team benefits everyone at the company. When people from different backgrounds work together, it helps everyone grow. Even those in the majority culture can pick up new skills and perspectives from their colleagues, making the whole team stronger and more creative.

Imagine if one of your salespeople, who has only ever worked in one type of community, started picking up enough cultural competence, through interacting with his colleagues, he could build confidence with new customers from different backgrounds way faster now.

5. Opening access to regulatory incentives and ensuring compliance

Canada really makes an effort to support people who’ve faced challenges finding work, both at the federal and provincial levels. There are some great programs out there, like the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities and the Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program, that help open doors for people who might otherwise be overlooked.

COMING SOON: How to recruit diverse talent on a budget

Five Common Mistakes To Avoid With Your Inclusive Teams

When you are recruiting inclusive teams for your business it’s very important to be aware of potential pitfalls that could hinder the benefits we just discussed. Here are some traps you could fall into even if you embrace inclusivity.

1. Unconscious bias

Have you ever looked at a person and just assumed they’d be good at something because they are a woman or from a certain ethnic background? That’s unconscious bias.

Unconscious bias happens when we unknowingly link stereotypes, both positive and negative, to certain groups, and let those assumptions influence how we view and treat people. In an inclusive workplace, it’s important that we focus on who people are as individuals, rather than relying on preconceived ideas tied to the groups they belong to.

CCSYR’s training programs, such as the Corporate Wellness Package, can help prevent this.

2. Not celebrating your Inclusive Team

If you’ve done the hard work of recruiting an inclusive team one of the worst things you could do next is not celebrate that achievement. Let’s be real, making your intentions to hire from a place of inclusivity is great marketing for your business.

So, shout it from the rooftops!

That shows other talented candidates that your business is a place where they can succeed and it demonstrates to a wide range of potential customers that you are interested in doing business with them. Celebrating your team can also increase employee satisfaction.

3. Narrow-minded diversity hiring

Making your business more inclusive doesn’t just mean hiring a bunch of people from one specific group. It’s not about ticking boxes, but about bringing in diverse perspectives. Hiring an entire team from one group won’t help you unlock the creativity or broader market access that you’re aiming for.

What’s really important is looking at intersectionality—acknowledging that people can belong to multiple groups, and those different experiences can offer even more unique skills and insights to your team. It’s about the mix, not just the individual pieces.

4. One-size-fits-all solutions to diverse challenges

One-size-fits-all solutions almost never work, especially in business. When you have an inclusive team, treating everyone the same can actually backfire. If you want to manage a group with different cultural backgrounds, experiences, and abilities, you’ve got to be ready to adapt and use personalized approaches that really work for each individual person.

That can have its challenges, but CCSYR has specialists who can help design these.

5. The Danger of a Single Story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian novelist, gave a really powerful talk back in 2009 about "the danger of a single story." She explained why it’s so important to focus on people as individuals, instead of assuming their life story is the same just because they look like someone else or speak the same language. It’s a reminder that everyone’s experience is unique!

This short video is an essential primer on how it is best to view your inclusive teams.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story | TED

COMING SOON: Measuring the Impact of Inclusive Teams on Business Performance

Case Study: What Happened when Canada’s Biggest Companies Embraced Inclusivity

In 2024 Forbes ranked Canada’s best employers for diversity and listed their success stories. Here are some key takeaways.

Hershey Company

Hersheys was number one on Forbes’ list. That’s because of their Pathways Project, which set diversity goals for 2025 that included 50% women and 30-40% people of colour in their workforce. The company also emphasizes pay transparency, employee resource groups, leadership programs and supplier diversity.

Microsoft

Microsoft came in at number two on the list. That’s thanks to its partnerships with organizations like Technolochicas and Girls Who Code. The company also runs a neurodiversity hiring program.

Adidas

Adidas supports several Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which provide spaces for employees to connect, share experiences and contribute to shaping the company’s policies. They encourage women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ individuals and those with disabilities to participate in and lead ERGs.

Brock University

Brock University was tenth on the list, thanks to their caring campus approach. Brock also offers comprehensive employee training in topics related to diversity and accessibility, such as compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

The entire list of 200 companies can be found here. CCSYR is committed to helping your company replicate the success of those listed (and maybe land your company on the list itself one day).

COMING SOON: Inclusive Leadership Matters: Leading Diverse Teams to Greater Success

Inclusive Teams Are Must-Have Assets for Businesses

Canada’s talent pool has never been richer. You just need to know where to look. Skilled professionals from around the world are bringing fresh expertise and experience, while more Canadians are stepping into (and back into) the workforce than ever before. Thanks to AI and accessibility tools, barriers for people with disabilities are coming down, and changing attitudes are opening doors across more industries. It’s an exciting time to find great talent and build diverse teams.

Don’t let opportunities to build an inclusive workforce pass you by!

Partner with CCSYR’s Include HER team to identify barriers, recruit diverse talent, and create the inclusive workplace your business deserves. Our experts, with stacks of industry contacts, are here to demystify the process through assessment toolkits, cultural sensitivity training, industry roundtables, inclusive workplace education, and help your business succeed in today’s Canada and beyond.