Creating an inclusive culture: Building tech workplaces that work

Digital Nova Scotia is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to growing and developing Nova Scotia’s digital technologies industry by facilitating connections, providing professional development and capacity-building opportunities, and promoting the digital sector. Digital Nova Scotia supports the tech sector as it continues to grow, evolve, and thrive. As part of this work, Digital Nova Scotia aims to support greater diversity and inclusion in Nova Scotia’s tech sector. Workplaces with diverse, equitable, and inclusive teams experience increased productivity, higher employee retention rates, and overall superior performance in comparison to competitors.
The two major challenges facing the tech sector in Nova Scotia are:
1. Nova Scotia struggles to identify the cultural change factors needed in the tech sector to recruit, hire, and retain equity deserving groups.
2. Nova Scotia struggles to implement effective cultural change to remove barriers to recruiting, hiring, retaining equity deserving groups.

The research being conducted in this internship will help Digital Nova Scotia identify approaches and techniques being conducted in other jurisdictions and industries. It will also identify an approach for conducting a larger study of factors that contribute to the attraction and retention of diverse technical talent, ideally supported by a Mitacs Accelerate grant. This information will ultimately help cultivate a competitive advantage in our region’s tech sector and help Nova Scotia grow its ICT industries.

Faculty Supervisor:

Scott Comber;Chantelle Falconer

Student:

Partner:

Digital Nova Scotia

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other services (except public administration)

University:

Dalhousie University

Program: