DM/CDS Message: Advancing Employment Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at National Defence

January 14, 2025 - Defence Stories

We are pleased to announce the release of the 2024-2027 Department of National Defence (DND) Employment Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EEDI) Plan (accessible only on the National Defence network). This plan represents our renewed commitment to creating a more representative public service workforce and an inclusive workplace.

The 2024-2027 DND EEDI Plan responds to the Clerk of the Privy Council’s 2021 Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion in the Federal Public Service, the 2023 Forward Direction Message to Deputies as well as numerous surveys, audits, reviews, and reports. The plan focuses on six lines of effort:

1. Tackling barriers that have a disproportionately negative impact on equity seeking groups;
2. Improving data quality and integration to better understand the workforce;
3. Setting and pursuing L1 hiring and promotion goals to close representation gaps;
4. Increasing accountability with clear mechanisms at all levels of the organization;
5. Strengthening governance through better reporting and decision-making; and
6. Optimizing communication and engagement with employees.

The accompanying Deputy Minister and Chief of the Defence Staff Directive on EEDI for the Public Service Workforce (accessible only on the National Defence network) instructs the Defence Team on operationalizing these lines of effort. It includes lines of effort for L1s, managers, and employees aimed at closing gaps in the representation of employment equity group members in all areas of the organization, while fostering inclusion for all.

All Defence Team managers of public service employees should become familiar with the EEDI Plan, pursue efforts in their areas of responsibility aligned to the accompanying directive, and make people management decisions that contribute to the plan’s strategic outcomes, while ensuring alignment and mutual reinforcement with activities of the Defence Team’s culture evolution strategy.

We also encourage all public service employees to complete both the mandatory Part A and the voluntary Part B of the Employment Equity Self-identification Questionnaire (EE Questionnaire) (accessible only on the National Defence network), in HRMS, email PDF or mail-in paper copy, to help strengthen the data that underpins these efforts. This will enable further well-informed, data-driven decision making and goal setting in the future.

We are grateful to the Defence Advisory Group, and union and employee network representatives, whose input was essential for developing this plan, and for their continued commitment to advance EEDI at DND.

Our plan must be ambitious to achieve lasting progress and eliminate employment barriers that negatively impact public service employees and harm the department’s culture, effectiveness, and inclusiveness. Each one of us has a role to play in creating and maintaining a workplace that is free from discrimination, values diversity, strives to be inclusive, and provides equitable opportunities for all.