The Ontario Public Service is committed to building senior leadership teams that reflect the diversity of Ontario. Diverse leadership, engaged in inclusive decision-making, will enable the public service to deliver services that better meet the needs of the people in Ontario.

In the last year, we have taken concrete steps to advance underrepresented talent and build organizational capacity to address systemic employment barriers.

Multi-year targets

In 2020, all ministries developed multi-year targets for leadership pathways to diversify their senior leadership teams. Ministries used socio-demographic data and data on talent development opportunities to build a diverse talent pool of emerging and current public service leaders.

The five-year targets focus on providing access to development and advancement opportunities through OPS pathways to leadership, including:

  • coaching and mentoring
  • leadership development programs
  • succession plans
  • recruitment shortlists

See ‘results’ section for the socio-demographic makeup of each pathway cohort.

We continued to focus on leadership accountability for results by linking diversification targets and outcomes to the annual deputy minister performance assessment process. We tracked progress, and in the 2020-21 performance cycle, 81.9% of pathway targets were met or exceeded. This is an improvement from 2019-20, in which 61.6% of targets were met or exceeded.

Roadmap to Racial Equity

The OPS took new steps to support Indigenous, Black and other racialized talent. In keeping with the commitments of the OPS Anti-Racism Policy, the OPS introduced the Roadmap to Racial Equity (the Roadmap), an enterprise-wide anti-racism plan that sets out three priorities:

  • building anti-racism competency and capacity
  • diversifying the talent pool
  • fostering and being accountable for an anti-racist and inclusive workplace

The roadmap also provides guidance for ministries and Commission Public Bodies to implement the enterprise-wide plan through the creation of ministry-level anti-racism action plans.

2017-2021 Multi-Year Accessibility Plan

Specific activities were undertaken to recruit, develop and improve the OPS’ capacity to support employees with disabilities through the 2017-2021 Multi-Year Accessibility Plan. Barriers to recruitment were identified through engagements with graduates with disabilities, leading to changes in the Ontario Internship Program. Efforts were made to increase the capacity of HR leaders to identify and address accessibility barriers that prevent people with disabilities from fully participating in the workplace. Data was shared to raise awareness of disparities in career progression and other inclusion results, supporting legislative obligations, commitments, and upcoming opportunities to improve accessibility.

Third-party review of inclusive workplace policies and programs

The OPS also concluded a third-party review of its inclusive workplace policies and programs with a focus that included finding effective approaches to identify and address systemic employment barriers and discrimination. About 4,000 employees were involved in shaping the findings of the review. The final reports contain over 200 recommendations to make the OPS a more inclusive, diverse, equitable, accessible, and anti-racist workplace, free from discrimination and harassment. Recommendations highlight specific approaches to address anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, transphobia, and specific barriers for persons with disabilities. The reports provide a pivotal opportunity to make meaningful change in the OPS. The Secretary of the Cabinet and OPS leadership are leading the response and have committed to concrete steps to accelerate change across the OPS. Implementation of these actions will be led by various ministries and will include engagement with key stakeholders.

One of these actions is to proactively identify and address systemic employment barriers, which will focus on:

  • improving recruitment
  • promotion and career development
  • workplace culture

Exploring the source of gaps and disparities within our talent development systems and processes and implementing evidence-based interventions will enable the OPS to address systemic employment barriers and strengthen the necessary conditions to diversify senior leadership.