Employment Matters Consulting (EMC)
Leaders in EDI and Employment Equity Compliance

Established in 2001, Employment Matters Consulting (EMC) is nationally recognized as the leading provider of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) solutions and strategies to Canadian corporations. The firm brings extensive cross-industry experience and subject matter expertise to all employers in all industries to build inclusive, anti-racist, diverse and high performing organizations. A key area of practice is employment equity compliance. EMC works extensively and successfully with federal contractors and federally regulated employers in the compliance space.

EMC is led by Keith Jeffers, a former Assistant Deputy Minister. Keith leads a team that possesses in depth expertise in inclusion, diversity. equity, accessibility, and anti-racism. EMC’s clients include businesses recognized as Canada’s best diversity employers, Canada’s ten most admired corporate cultures, subsidiaries of the U.S. Fortune 100, and the world’s most admired companies. Our cross industry experience includes, but is not limited to agri-business, air transportation, auto rental, banking and finance, construction, electronics, engineering, food safety, IT hardware and software, pharmaceuticals, and post-secondary organizations. Following is the conversation that Manage HR had with Keith Jeffers, the President, and Principal Consultant of Employment Matters Consulting (EMC).

Tell us about your experience in the space and the organizational wisdom that you bring to the table.

As a former Assistant Deputy Minister in the province of British Columbia and an award-winning EDI strategist, I bring an organizational wisdom acquired from more than twenty-five years of experience in senior management, employment equity compliance, EDI Audits, anti-racism, diversity, and inclusion, change management, and strategic human resources management. As a public service executive, I was a key architect of employment equity in the Ontario Public Service, Canada’s second-largest employer. There, I designed and led the enterprise-wide implementation of employment systems reviews or EDI Audits, in all provincial ministries, agencies, boards, and commissions. As senior Assistant Deputy Minister in British Columbia, I managed four branches and seventy staff and was accountable for the strategic management of staffing, corporate HR policy and planning, employee learning, employment equity and diversity for a workforce of 40,000. I engaged in strategy development, policy formulation and decision-making that impacted workforce adjustment strategies for the province. I shaped and managed British Columbia’s Public Service Renewal Strategy, that modernized and strengthened its human resources management systems.

My background includes KPMG, international consulting in the US, Guyana, the Eastern Caribbean and South Africa.

Apart from the experience that you exhibit, what makes EMC the best-in-class Diversity/ Employment Equity consulting practice in the nation?

We stand out because of the results we help our clients to achieve. We bring to each engagement, our depth and breadth of expertise, our cross-industry experience, and our well-developed consulting skills. EMC works with client organizations as a strategic business partner and provides advice, tools, and expertise to ensure they succeed. In the employment equity compliance space, we guarantee and deliver compliance for federal contractors and federally regulated employers. We help all clients establish the systems, policies, and practices that create systemic change. Consulting interventions include workforce surveys, quantitative and qualitative analyses, employee consultations, EDI Audits, ESRs, training workshops, policy development, corporate change strategies and EDI action plans. We provide hands-on consulting to support our clients create, implement and monitor their plans to become better and more competitive employers.

Please elaborate on the approach that EMC takes to develop EDI programs for its clients.

First, we understand the business of our clients and the challenges they face as employers and in their marketplace. EDI is a business solution, and this informs our approach to EDI. EMC identifies corporate policies, practices, and elements of corporate culture that are barriers to access, inclusion, and employee engagement. We then work collaboratively with to develop policies, programs, initiatives, and strategies that remove systemic barriers. We strengthen their internal capacity to attract, retain, and engage the diversity of talent they need to be successful. Our client organizations become more open, accessible, and productive.

Tell us about EMC’s acquired considerable knowledge about the diversity/employment equity environment across the nation. How does it help you in steering ahead as a company?

EMC conducts innumerable in-depth diagnostic lived experiences interviews with Canada’s workforce about racism, sexism, homophobia, gender identity and gender expression, ableism, anti-indigeneity, equity, diversity, engagement, and exclusion in the workplace. We review scores of employment policies and practices to ensure they are bias free. EMC’s client corporations, their employees and bargaining agents are representative of a wide range of industries, corporate cultures, occupations, geographical and economic regions, and provinces across Canada. In this way, I have acquired considerable knowledge about the inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility and anti-racism environment across the nation, the barriers to inclusion, and strategies and initiatives that best promote anti-racism, diversity, and inclusion. I use this knowledge to help our clients build inclusive and winning work cultures.