Throughout my career I have had many mentors. I decided to join TRIEC Mentoring Partnership as I wanted the opportunity to give back. Being a mentor means being available to assist a person with getting them familiar with the Canadian professional work environment. You provide observations and coaching based on your past experience.

It’s very satisfying when you see that your dialogue and coaching is making an impact on the individual. I see this through all the mock interviews and workforce discussions – my mentees become a lot more confident in themselves as they gain skills.

Mentoring has helped me succeed in my own career. You learn a lot by teaching. Working with the mentees over a period of time, I have become a better coach. We learn from learning with our mentees – when I talk about practices of the Canadian workforce I become aware of those practices and I do them myself as well. It has increased my awareness of diversity: and working with a large range of people over the years enhances my self-awareness as well.

I absolutely believe that other professionals should mentor. I have learnt there are benefits to both sides of the partnership. The newcomers need a way to get into the workforce mentors also gain a potential hiring pipeline for our own organizations. Another benefit is we gain stronger coaching and mentoring skillsets as a mentor.

At the very beginning of the program, I connected with my mentor through LinkedIn. It was after this that I felt more confident about my goals and where should I focus my efforts. In addition, the following factors made a big difference and helped me with my transition to employment in Canada:

• A well-defined and structured program with a step by step explanation of all the processes, main objectives and expected results.
• Personalized and genuine attention by the program members, as well as dedicated follow up on the advances and constraints.
• Effective courses, bibliography and support from staff – for example, I received a LinkedIn profile critique that helped me out to improve my profile and get the attention of recruiters.
• The way the support programs are interconnected is highly effective. This guides the participant on how to reach out to the correct person/ program.

I was able to find the job I was looking for even before finishing the mentoring program. I want to thank all the people behind the scenes that make this kind of program possible and accessible to people looking for success. Be it Canadians or immigrants, we are making a better Canada for everyone.

Leading the Conversation is a comprehensive four-month leadership program. It offers practical, solutions-based tools and resources that help leaders increase the diversity of their workforce and build an inclusive work culture. So far, 86 leaders from 73 organizations have completed the program.

The program offered its eighth cohort in 2017-2018. Nine organizations participated in the program, including Regional Municipality of York, The Regional Municipality of Durham, Purolator, and Royal Victoria Health Centre. This year’s evaluation results showed that 100% of participants used the tools and learning from the course to take action in their organization, and 78% reported that their organization acted on diversity and inclusion efforts during the four month the program lasts.

Here’s what some of the participants had to say about the program:

"I have been able to share the knowledge I received in Leading the Conversation and guide our organization towards a more inclusive place for the provision of care. Awareness is the first step to change"
- Darrell Sewell, Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre

"The learning has enforced the need to have a diversity and inclusion lens on all aspects of our work. We all need to feel valued and included – ensuring this is part of our culture will increase our success as an organization"
- Tracey Macaulay, Manager, Talent Acquisition and Organization Development, The Regional Municipality of Durham