A new online resource is helping organizations across Canada build stronger connections with Indigenous employees by offering insights into their worldviews and workplace experiences.

Developed over six years through a collaboration among the University of Windsor, the University of Waterloo, and Conestoga College, “Building Trust with Indigenous Employees: the Indigenous Workways Toolkit” is designed to help managers, human resource professionals, and employees create culturally safe and inclusive workplaces.

“It’s a great tool because it’s useful not only for people directly encountering these situations but also for anyone interested in topics like Indigenous worldviews, relational communication, microaggressions, stereotypes, holistic conflict management, psychology and cultural safety, which is important for everyone,” says Nobuko Fujita, a learning specialist in the Office of Open Learning who helped put the resource together.

The toolkit includes six self-guided training modules that explore the contemporary Indigenous context and share the lived experiences of Indigenous employees from the Indigenous Workways action research project. It also offers three manuals, each filled with information and tools to assess and support cultural safety for Indigenous employees, develop mentorship networks and guide organizational outreach to Indigenous communities.

“It has links to videos, and there are some interactive elements so you can test yourself after a reading, which helps people grasp the main concept rather than just answering questions at the end of a chapter. That helps make it fun and engaging,” Fujita says.

Psychology professors Catherine Kwantes of the University of Windsor, Wendi Adair of the University of Waterloo, and Leanne Gosse of Conestoga College developed the toolkit after collaborating on research into the workplace experiences of Indigenous peoples and the role of Indigenous culture in those experiences.

Russell Nahdee, an Indigenous learning specialist in the Office of Open Learning, was an advisor on the project from the beginning and, according to Dr. Kwantes, “played a key role in guiding and encouraging each of the efforts that led to the toolkit development.”

“My involvement with Building Trust with Indigenous Employees: the Indigenous Workways Toolkit offered an incredible opportunity to learn about the everyday workplace and to offer my experience as a first-generation Indigenous student and as an employee in an educational institution,” Nahdee says. “The toolkit offers valuable information to help navigate between Indigenous and non-Indigenous efforts to support reconciliation and create a meaningful and supported workplace.”

Participants in the study were asked questions exploring their ideal workplace, ideal experience, and what is important to them at work, among others.

“Many reported that they were the only Indigenous person in their office, so they often felt othered and had trouble establishing meaningful, trusting workplace relationships,” says Dr. Adair.

She says the research team explored preferred modes of conflict management, Indigenous values of relationality, co-worker communication, and creating cultures of safety for Indigenous employees.

“That’s something that stood out for us throughout the project — the importance of relationality as an Indigenous worldview. This is the belief that each employee exists within a web of interconnected relationships with other people, the land, animals and spirit. Maintaining these relationships involves mutual respect, reciprocity and taking responsibility for how one's words and actions impact others,” Adair says.

She notes that this was evident in employees’ preference for a conflict management approach that is unhurried, takes social and emotional factors into account, and considers its impact on others in the organization beyond those directly involved.

“Relationality was evident in how employees formed trusting and respectful relationships at work — by taking time and making space to learn about a whole person and to socially attune with them beyond task-focused workplace communication. It infuses ideas around what makes for a workplace that provides psychological safety for all employees, and specifically for Indigenous employees, cultural safety,” says Adair.

She says all their research was conducted with guidance from Indigenous elders, an advisory council, and a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars and students.

“I hope people continue researching this area with a decolonizing lens. The more we can build connections with Indigenous employees in the mainstream Canadian workforce, the more opportunities there will be to learn,” she says.

Building Trust with Indigenous Employees: the Indigenous Workways Toolkit is available online.