Inclusion of immigrants: 17 Montréal firms promise

Actions within 6 to 12 months to several thousand employees

Tuesday March 14, 2023

Montréal, March 14, 2023 – IDEOS, HEC Montréal’s Social Impact Hub has released the highlights of the 2nd cohort of the Pacte pour l’inclusion au travail des personnes immigrantes (Pact to encourage inclusion at work for immigrants). Managed in collaboration with the city of Montréal, through the Bureau d’intégration des nouveaux arrivants à Montréal (Newcomer Office, BINAM), this program has been made possible with financial assistance from the Government of Quebec.

17 Montréal firms of varying sizes and sectors have been offered 5 months of support at the end of which, actions on the ground related to the professional integration of immigrants will positively impact several thousand managers and employees, thus contributing to an inclusive metropolis.

On March 7, measurable commitments for the next 6 to 12 next months were presented at HEC Montréal by the spokespersons of the firms in this cohort: 5N Plus, Airbus Canada, Centre Génération Emploi, Québec & Latin America Chamber of Commerce, Chantier de l’économie sociale, CHU Sainte-Justine, CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, Space for Life Foundation, Montréal Junior Chamber of Commerce, LeddarTech, Lou-Tec inc., Montréal International, Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal, Société culturelle Les Survenants, Start-up Montréal, Tel-jeunes, TV5 Québec Canada.

Taking action more quickly

This cohort began against the backdrop of labor shortage. The teams notably had short-term talent attraction and integration objectives, which led to the emergence of very specific actions, including the creation of an integration process, a mentoring-sponsorship system, and a guide on the business culture of Quebec. Regarding career planning and talent development, the teams identified tools to help managers advance in their training on unconscious biases, and on new processes to avoid them during recruitment.

Several firms attest to the fact this program helped them to clearly identify relevant actions to be taken in their context, and to take action more quickly, something that they could not have done alone, due to a lack of time and resources. More than 80% of them believe that their skills in terms of integrating immigrants have increased somewhat, a lot or immensely, thanks to this support.

“I would like to highlight the work done by the Bureau d’intégration des nouveaux arrivants à Montréal and the HEC Montréal IDEOS Hub in implementing the Pacte pour l’inclusion au travail des personnes immigrantes. The Pact is a tool to ensure better integration of immigrants in the workplace. All talents should be harnessed! I am proud to highlight our government's investment of over $330,000 to support this initiative. Congratulations to the second cohort! The program is clearly a success!”

"The lessons learned, and the commitments made by the firms participating in this second cohort confirm the full importance and impact of the Pact in a context where the professional integration of immigrants is both vital and essential to making Montréal a leading host city. This year again, the Pact has enabled firms to develop practical experiments that will sustainably transform their organizational practices, not only for attracting, hiring and integrating immigrants, but also for retaining them and boosting their progress in the longer term.” 

Creating a community of practice

The Pact also enables its members to create a community of practice around the integration of immigrants in the workplace.

“After this 2nd cohort, we can already see the advantages of being part of a group of managers who are trying to innovate in this area. Being able to share good practices and learn collectively from our failures is one of the strengths of the program. We favor an approach of continuous improvement for immigrants.”

Maximizing social impact

From October 2022 to March 2023, experts from the HEC Montréal IDEOS Hub offered support to firms to create an action plan suited to their reality. This was done in the form of co-design workshops, taking into account the different phases of the inclusion process for immigrants: attracting talent, hiring process, integration into the firm, and career planning and talent development.

“We used an agile methodology, derived from management, to adapt to the context of each organization, which can be complexe. We wanted to maximize social impact by conducting small-scale tests quickly and practically on those actions and projects intended to be deployed on a larger scale.”

Besides the management, employees, including immigrants, were also integrated into the process. Micro-experiments also help raise awareness among peripheral members of the firm, stimulate discussions among colleagues, and advance policies in human resources and equity-diversity-inclusion.

This cohort was led by Marine Agogué, Sébastien Arcand, Luciano Barin-Cruz and Kevin Johnson, who are all HEC Montréal faculty members and who contribute to the IDEOS Hub. Six Master’s students from the School also offered support to the firms as interns for the research and analysis phase of the situation.

For more information:

• Pacte pour l’inclusion au travail des personnes immigrantes (Pact to encourage inclusion at work for immigrants) [in French only]
• Stratégie Montréal inclusive au travail [in French only]  

about the hec montréal ideos hub 

The mission of IDEOS is to raise awareness and support the HEC Montréal community, firms, and entrepreneurs, as well as to disseminate knowledge by placing social impact at the heart of its actions. It favors a participatory approach whereby faculty members, students and stakeholders in the ecosystem are called upon to collaborate, share and contribute to the development of its mandate.

Information for HEC Montréal:

Émilie Novales, ARP
Senior Media Relations Consultant
438 520-3536 
emilie.novales@hec.ca

Source:
Clarisse Broucke 
Project Manager
HEC Montréal IDEOS Hub
clarisse.broucke@hec.ca