Daily COVID-19 digest

Thank you for your participation: 

Thank you to everyone who was able to join us for the live Q&A and conversation on diversity, equity and inclusion. In the current climate, these discussions are more important than ever. We hope that you found it engaging and that you left the conversation with a better understanding of how our organization is responding to these critical issues.  If you couldn’t attend, you can access a recording of the event on your COVID-19 employee portal.  

During today’s event, Graham mentioned that we have partnered with external consultants at Feminuity to conduct an employee diversity, equity and inclusion assessment. This will help us understand what we’re doing well and where we can improve. The assessment will include a 15-minute anonymous survey that can be completed online. All employees have received a link to this survey today and it will remain open until July 31, 2020. Learn more about the assessment and access the survey link on Connect.

Stories from our frontline: Tara Wilson is a medical laboratory technologist in Calgary, where she works in donor testing. She tests blood donations to make sure they are safe for patients, and also to find matching blood for patients with rare blood types. During the pandemic, she was part of our national effort to provide units for a young sickle cell patient in B.C. “I have young children myself and I feel for this family,” Tara says. “To be able to help a little girl who is so innocent and vulnerable, there’s no other driving force like that.” Read more about Tara’s story at blood.ca/stories

Two more days to nominate a colleague for Living Our Values: Every year, we come together to recognize and celebrate employees who exemplify our values while contributing to lifesaving work. Until July 10, we are encouraging all of you to nominate an outstanding colleague for the Living Our Values awards. This year, perhaps more than ever, we need to recognize outstanding work in these truly unprecedented circumstances. With just five minutes of your time you can recognize those who continue to support Canada’s Lifeline and bring our values of ICARE to work with them every day. Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for a list of our 2020 nominees!

Question of the day: Why are we even talking about diversity, equity and inclusion? Can’t we all be treated equally without the mention of one’s skin’s colour, gender or race?

While it's nice to think we are all treated equally, the reality is many people are treated differently by others and have fewer social and economic opportunities as a result of their background.

Advocating for increased diversity doesn’t mean people from marginalized groups want an unfair advantage or handouts, they want the same opportunities that others — especially white people — have had.

Some people think that treating everyone the same is the goal, but it turns out that doing so actually results in discrimination and unequal opportunity. Treating everyone the same, even when they’ve faced vastly different challenges, only serves to keep them on a tilted playing field.

Equality focuses on creating the same starting line for everyone. Equity has the goal of providing everyone with the full range of opportunities.

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About the daily digest

This daily digest will highlight the latest policy and employee support measures, resources to help you manage our new reality and original content like articles and videos to remind us that what we do matters. Things are moving quickly, so you can expect to hear from us daily. No access to email? No problem — all this information and more can be found on blood.ca/employees from any device, no login required.

Click here to read past editions of the daily digest.

Have questions? Check out blood.ca/employees or email us at communications@blood.ca.