Culture Mandate Letter: Inclusion Means Everyone 2024 - 2025

We understand the importance of workplace culture as a mission enabler. At all levels of the organization, we will continue to prioritize working together to improve ourselves and to focus on the people side – which is the root of business. It's about making the conscious decision to do better today than yesterday.

A positive workplace culture built on a foundation of diversity and inclusion adds value by leveraging the organization’s most valued resource - its human capital. Key benefits of diverse organizations include higher innovation, increased engagement, and more effective decisions.

How can this be done? As an organization, we can all commit to learning how to enhance our communication, understanding, and connection in a way that aims to increase empathy as we build a positive workplace culture. This is the “how” we can create a more psychologically safe and inclusive culture as we learn and grow our communication in a way that will help us express our needs on a personal and professional level.To do our best work for Canadians, we must first feel physically and psychologically safe. One person committed to equity, fairness and psychological safety can elevate our Defence Team. We will work together to ensure deliberate inclusion by design by using the Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) lens to support our diverse workforce where we include all forms of ability, accessibility and intersectional diversity through inclusion by design.

Imagine what can happen when more people commit to the same. This Mandate Letter is our pledge to the advancement of Materiel Group, our Defence Team and the Federal Public Service. We pledge to adhere to the commitments outlined in the Letter and update it as we create and grow together.

Director Generals, Directors, Managers, Team Leads, and all Members can sign the mandate letter and execute the commitments, and be provided with the Companion Guide of ideas to enhance individual accountability and remove systemic barriers in our organizations so all individuals can thrive and contribute to the Defence Team. Inclusion means everyone, always.

The Diversity and Inclusion Office (DIO), which is part of Materiel Group, National Defence (DND), administers the Culture Mandate Letter.

The DIO may use or share the information you provide:

• within DIO for policy analysis, research and/or evaluation activities.
• within Materiel Group for policy analysis, research and/or evaluation activities.