We’ve been hear­ing a lot about diver­si­ty, inclu­sion, and equi­ty in the work­place late­ly — a cause women have been cham­pi­oning for quite some time. Equi­ty — which is the goal to be fair and impar­tial — in par­tic­u­lar is the means by which we can open the door to true diver­si­ty and inclu­sion, and ulti­mate­ly, a sense of belong­ing for every­one in the workplace. 

We sat down with Liu­ba Loiko, busi­ness sys­tems expert at Sco­tia­bank, to talk about how cre­at­ing an equi­table work­place can not only improve the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al path for all employ­ees, but also help to push inno­va­tion and suc­cess on an enter­prisewide level. 

Equi­ty Is Good for Every­one Across the Globe 

Loiko’s per­spec­tive is unique in that she moved to Cana­da from Rus­sia just four years ago. She grew up, went to school, and start­ed her career in Rus­sia at a time when equi­ty wasn’t even a thought, let alone a goal. ​“In the books and legal­ly speak­ing,” she said, ​“women can go to school and pur­sue a career in ways not dif­fer­ent from what men can do. But cul­tur­al­ly and tra­di­tion­al­ly, it’s a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent story.” 

She recalls hav­ing to answer ques­tions like, ​“Why would women even con­sid­er engi­neer­ing?” If not for the encour­age­ment of a men­tor, she might not have even gone down that path. Today, in a new coun­try she calls home, Loiko takes pride in the work she does as a senior busi­ness ana­lyst for a lead­ing multi­na­tion­al bank­ing and finan­cial ser­vices company. 

“I took SAP cours­es at the uni­ver­si­ty I attend­ed and this indi­vid­ual, my teacher, saw in me the grit required to be effec­tive in this field,” she said. ​“He helped me to under­stand how to bet­ter deal with the naysay­ers, and I’ve used that as a les­son learned for oth­er chal­lenges that came up through­out my career.” Loiko recalled the first time she real­ized that her voice and opin­ion mat­tered and how that led to her want­i­ng to par­tic­i­pate more in her role at Sco­tia­bank. ​“It meant there were more oppor­tu­ni­ties to not only grow as an indi­vid­ual, but to con­tribute as well.” 

Mak­ing Room for Dif­fer­ent Voic­es Leads to Bet­ter Results

Although there is more of an open dis­cus­sion about work­place equi­ty in North Amer­i­ca, Loiko was clear that there still is much more work to do there. ​“Often times, women are over­looked for a job or even more respon­si­bil­i­ty because there is still a stig­ma of women need­ing to pri­or­i­tize care­tak­ing over their work.” She point­ed to the sim­i­lar­i­ty with Rus­sia. Even though there are laws on the books that pro­tect against such work­place dis­crim­i­na­tion, it doesn’t stop the hir­ing man­ag­er or super­vi­sor from mak­ing deci­sions based on biases. 

Accord­ing to ​“Women, Busi­ness, and the Law 2020,” a research report pub­lished by World Bank Group, 40 economies have enact­ed 62 reforms enhanc­ing gen­der equal­i­ty since 2017. It isn’t enough, how­ev­er, to sim­ply enact and adopt pro­gres­sive laws. To real­ly pave the way for an equi­table work­place, there must be room for more diverse voic­es when it comes to deci­sion-mak­ing. ​“Equi­ty isn’t lim­it­ed by just gen­der,” Loiko said. ​“For exam­ple, some­one like me can shine a light on not just what it’s like to be a woman in the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try, but also what it’s like to be an immi­grant in this coun­try and what that expe­ri­ence means to my con­tri­bu­tion to this organization.” 

There are many lay­ers to diver­si­ty, and they stretch far beyond gen­der, race, and sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. But if the goal of an orga­ni­za­tion is to pro­vide an equi­table work­place, then it must cre­ate a plat­form to intro­duce as diverse a voice as pos­si­ble to bet­ter iden­ti­fy gaps, as well as to bet­ter tap into the capa­bil­i­ties of its work­force. This is espe­cial­ly true as orga­ni­za­tions look to nav­i­gate the cur­rent busi­ness land­scape by recruit­ing and retain­ing the best tal­ent available. 

Don’t Just Demand It, Prac­tice It!

Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, peo­ple want to work for an orga­ni­za­tion that is fair.  Where you can some­times lose peo­ple is when they per­ceive that they’ll have to give some­thing up to build a work envi­ron­ment that is more equi­table for all. But the real­i­ty is that the orga­ni­za­tion over­all will ben­e­fit when it makes these changes. ​“We need to move the nee­dle from try­ing to iden­ti­fy what some­one else can do to cre­ate change, to mak­ing the con­ver­sa­tion more about what we as indi­vid­u­als can do,” Loiko stated. 

Part of the chal­lenge in draw­ing atten­tion to a cause is that we now live in a soci­ety where every­one is try­ing to grab your atten­tion, con­stant­ly. And they do so by shin­ing a light on the neg­a­tive. Loiko said an easy way to ini­ti­ate change is to draw atten­tion to the good. ​“If your orga­ni­za­tion imple­ment­ed a pos­i­tive change, or your team made progress on a chal­leng­ing project because there was diver­si­ty in the room, then call it out,” she insist­ed. ​“You don’t need to be in the C‑suite to influ­ence pos­i­tive change. You can sim­ply help show­case it when you see it.” 

As we all learn to be present in each other’s pres­ence and to be bet­ter lis­ten­ers at the same time, Loiko cau­tioned that the most impor­tant thing to remem­ber is, ​“to not give up.” She added, ​“We all have dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives in life and that will always dic­tate how we pro­ceed for­ward. The key is to under­stand that just because some­one doesn’t hear you right now in this moment, doesn’t mean your opin­ion isn’t valu­able. If you believe it, then keep say­ing it.” 

Watch the on-demand ASUG Women Con­nect web­cast, ​“Focus­ing on Econ­o­my, Gen­der, and More to Cre­ate an Equi­table Work­place,” where Liu­ba Loiko shares more from her per­son­al sto­ry and tips on how to keep the nee­dle mov­ing on equality. 

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