Along with all staff at the university, AUFA members will soon be receiving an Equity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) survey from the EDI Co-Chairs of the newly constituted Athabasca University (AU) EDI committee. The EDI survey was designed by KPMG, an audit, tax and advisory firm. KPMG has been retained by AU to "guide" the EDI process at AU. Given the circumstances of its release, AUFA’s executive has decided to provide members with this accompanying blog post, to better frame both the survey and the history leading up to its release. We hope this information will be useful for our members as they navigate answering the survey’s questions and understanding new EDI initiatives at the University more broadly.
A Brief Timeline
On May 26th, AUFA’s executive was contacted by an HR representative, on behalf of the EDI committee Chairs, who shared the final draft of the EDI survey and requested consent from AUFA to distribute it to our membership. This survey and email correspondence were then shared with AUFA’s Equity Committee who, along with the executive, provided a response to the Chairs. It quickly became clear that although consent was officially requested from AUFA, the EDI committee Chairs were not open to incorporating feedback or suggestions on how to improve the survey. We have included this email communication, which the Chairs allowed us to share, below.
Ultimately, we understand this exchange to be a request for the union’s consent without proper consultation. The AUFA executive was informed that the survey would either be circulated to the membership in its current form, or not circulated to the membership at all. We further learnt that AU was obligated to ask for the union’s consent because this is a statutory freeze period in bargaining – meaning that the university cannot make changes to working conditions while we are in bargaining. In the end, AUFA attempted to consent with the caveat that the anonymous, unaggregated survey data be shared with the union. This request was denied.
The AUFA executive does not believe that we should withhold consent for the entire membership of AUFA. However, we do not support this EDI survey for several reasons:
DATA: Access to the raw anonymized data will be solely in the control of the third party, KPMG and the AU executive. Given that AUFA Executive will not have access to this data, it’s not clear whether this data could be used against the interests of members in this upcoming period of bargaining.
EXTERNALLY DRIVEN PROCESS: KPMG was hired prior to the formation of the EDI committee at AU and the AU EDI Survey is structured by KPMG’s Assessment Framework that they had previously developed and used elsewhere.
NO CONSULTATION: AUFA has been given no opportunity to offer comments or revisions to the survey that will be collecting data on its membership. For instance, we had at the very least hoped to include an “N/A” rating response as we are concerned that “neutral” answers will be coded as positive.
METHODOLOGY: The survey may not uncover/reveal substantial equity issues at AU, bring to light the equity work that members of AU are engaged in, and/or capture the ideas AU members have about equity and justice.
PRINCIPLES AND SUBSTANCE OF EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION: The historical contexts in which we find ourselves in this moment, reveal that despite all of our intentions to start from hoping and assuming equity (“One AU,” “One Nation,” etc), there are systemic barriers for many. It is appropriate to tease apart the acronym EDI and recognize that the barriers that “EDI” is meant to address require significant engagement with those constituencies in our communities, rather than imposed ‘boiler plate’ models.
Externally driven EDI initiatives that are implemented with a top-down approach do not result in substantive institutional change. Yet, given that this process is ongoing, AUFA is considering how our own parallel process could support a transparent, accountable, collaborative, and consultative approach to equity, diversity and inclusion - one that is attentive to systemic forms of discrimination and oppression, and animated by a commitment to just working conditions for its members.
Next Steps
Your perspectives on, and experiences of inequity matter to the AUFA Executive. At this early stage, there are a few key ways that AUFA members can support a more rigorous engagement with equity and social justice:
As part of AUFA’s long-term commitments to equity, the upcoming July survey of the Membership Engagement Committee (MEC) will include questions about AUFA members’ identities, and equity experiences, views, and needs. Future MEC initiatives will include more robust questions about EDI at AU.
In filling out AU’s EDI survey, members are encouraged to make use of the comment boxes to offer substantive comments on the importance of equity at AU and your concerns about the survey’s methodology and the lack of consultation.
Members can be in touch with AUFA directly to share your thoughts on equity, diversity and inclusion that were not captured in the survey. AUFA will use this information to inform its equity process and future consultation with members.
Communications between AUFA, and a human resources representative and the EDI Co-Chairs
AUFA had several questions regarding the survey, how it was organized, how accessible the data will be and what does informed consent in this context mean.
The University agreed to AUFA sharing the questions and corresponding responses the University provided with respect to the EDI survey, in their entirety to AUFA members. These are the answers that we received from the university (indented as quotes):
1. What was the consultation process for producing the survey?
The survey was created by KPMG based on the methodology and experience they bring to the table. The survey was further reviewed by the EDI Committee for discussion and the agreed to edits incorporated. The updated survey had a final review conducted by Matt and Charlene as executive sponsors. KPMG has currently sent out the survey to the EDI Committee for testing purposes.
2. Who will have access to the raw data of the survey? Will AUFA have access to the raw data to inform our support of AUFA members?
The external consultant, KPMG, is administering the survey. After the survey is closed, the EDI Co-chairs and EDI Engagement Committee will receive the aggregated data from KPMG. This data will be reviewed and discussed, and based on these discussions, KPMG will create a Current State Findings Report that will help inform the development of AU’s EDI Strategy and Framework. The EDI Engagement Committee, Champions, and Sponsors will review the Current State Findings Report and provide comments/modifications to the recommendations. Once finalized, this report will be made public through the AU EDI Intranet page. KPMG will provide AU with the raw data upon completion of the AU EDI Strategy and Framework in a password protected format. This raw data will reside only with the CHRO and will be used for benchmarking. For clarity, the raw data will not be shared with AUFA.
3. How will the data be analyzed? Will the results be analyzed in relation to participants’ identity markers?
Our members have raised concern with many of the questions of the survey, including those that ask participants to answer whether their immediate supervisor / manager treats them differently based on a list of identity categories. The nature of systemic oppression is such that employees are often not aware of when they’ve been discriminated against. Thus a “strongly disagree” or disagree” response can’t be substantiated. How will the survey analysts account for these methodological issues? This is one example of several issues that our members have with the survey.
The EDI survey is intended to provide a starting point for understanding the AU environment and how it relates to EDI. The data collected through the survey will be analyzed to help understand trends and gaps where they exist; this will include statistical analysis where relevant. The information that is provided in Part 2 of the survey will only be used to help identify aggregate trends where they might exist and will not be used to identify individuals at AU in any way. All open-ended questions will be analyzed using a sentiment analysis tool to help determine any trends in the responses submitted. The aggregated data that KPMG will provide to AU upon completion of the survey, will include the themes and trends from this analysis, but will not include statements or phrases that could be used to identified individuals at AU.
The data that a survey participant provides is entirely optional and confidential. A participant does not need to answer every question, or any question that they are not comfortable responding to. The data that is provided in the survey will be analyzed to understand where any gaps or trends lie in relation to the current state of equity, diversity, and inclusion at AU.
For the questions in relation to an immediate supervisor or manager, a participant does not need to respond to them, or is able to check the “Unknown Reason” box indicating that they have noticed or experienced the described behaviour for a reason that cannot be determined or specified. Each of these questions is also followed with an open-ended section, where participants are able to describe any additional information related to their experiences. We understand that systemic oppression may in some cases be undetected, and are pairing the findings and analysis from this survey with other methods of analysis, such as focus groups and documentation reviews to help identify potential gaps at AU. Specific strategies to address systemic barriers will be identified, based on the survey results and discussions and ideas from AU team members. The overall goal is to embed EDI into all aspects of AU work and create an environment that is equitable, diverse and inclusive with the participation of team members from across AU
4. How will data be used? Will this survey inform and guide the rest of the EDI plan?
The data provided by this survey will first be used to develop a Current State Findings Report, that will then be used to inform, guide, and develop the AU EDI Framework, Strategy and Action Plan in conjunction with the findings. The EDI Framework, Strategy and Action Plan will be prepared by AU in conjunction with KPMG and the EDI Engagement Committee.
5. What is the timeline for the survey production and completion?
The survey is planned to be launched on Tuesday, June 16, 2020 and close on Tuesday, June 30, 2020.
6. Has the Tri-Agency and CRC program obliged AU to produce and administer a survey such as this one?
The Tri-agency has created specific requirements to ensure that EDI is incorporated into all aspects of the CRC program. Data from the specified scans and reviews will be included in AU’s CRC EDI Action plan due to the Tri-agency in November 2020. The required data collection methods as identified by the Tri-agency will provide a broad context of AU and whether the CRC characteristics are representative of systemic barriers for under-represented groups. The proposed EDI survey is required to provide a comprehensive and thorough set of data from which a specific action plan can be created. The Tri-agency expects progress, and PSI’s across Canada have been informed of the consequences of not complying with Tri-agency requirements (i.e., future CRC nominations will not be reviewed, CRC stipends may be cancelled)
7. Is the EDI committee open to making changes to the survey in consultation with AUFA?
The EDI Engagement committee, co-chairs, the sponsors guided by KPMG have worked diligently on the development of the questions over a number of meetings and weeks. The methodology for the survey has been tested to be valid and reliable by KPMG and utilized by them successfully at other PSIs. Major changes to questions or sections cannot occur as it will not align with the methodology.
In Solidarity,
AUFA Executive and AUFA Equity Committee