Recognition is motivating…but growing and getting better are the ultimate goals in pursuing gender parity.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” – Alice in Wonderland

Every three years, we develop a vision for what the company will look like three years into the future. We call it our “Painted Picture.” Each Painted Picture becomes our guiding light for decision-making throughout our organization—it’s a framework designed to move Cooper down a path toward specific goals.

The details in our Painted Picture never come out of left field. They’re always aligned with our vision, mission, and values. In 2022, we developed our Painted Picture for 2025, and in it, we committed to diversity, with the goal of women and visible minorities making up 40% of our team and represented at all levels of Cooper. We also set the guiding principle: Cooper Equipment Rentals is a place where everyone feels safe and comfortable coming to work as their true self.

Coincidentally, in 2022, we also hired our first Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Advisor (our Painted Picture really does make us walk the talk!). But 2022 isn’t where our DEI journey began…

We’ve had a particular focus on attracting, recruiting and retaining more women for the last several years. In 2020, we set gender parity as a goal and applied for Parity Certification with Women in Governance. Our focus in Year One was less on achieving certification and more on setting a baseline – because getting to your goal starts with being honest about where you are right now.

With our first assessment in hand, we knew what we needed to prioritize. So we got to work. Since 2020, we’ve steadily improved our parity performance, achieving bronze and then, this year, silver certification! We were so close to gold, we could taste it!

Let’s be honest, though. While this certification is definitely something to be proud of, it’s not about the recognition. It’s about something bigger. It’s about inclusion.

We’ve got a skilled worker shortage.

We’re literally recruiting heavy equipment mechanics from other countries because there aren’t enough in Canada. And we’re not alone. Across Canada, companies are struggling to hire people in trades.

If more Canadians pursued a career in trades, we would all win. Companies get access to more skilled and diverse labour – and Canadians get fulfilling, well-paid job opportunities. We recognize a psychologically and physically safe work environment is essential to attracting new employees. As a Parity Certified organization, we’re demonstrating our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion – and we’re showing a new path to people who might have otherwise ignored an opportunity in construction because it’s still viewed as a traditional, male-dominated industry.

You manage what you measure.

Pursuing Parity Certification forced us to take a good look in the mirror. It helped us take a really critical look at our processes and our unconscious biases.

As a result of our certification journey, we’ve adjusted our recruitment process. For example, we require our yard coordinators to be able to lift 50+ lbs. As a result, we got very few female applicants. When the branches we’re recruiting for have equipment to do the lifting, we now mention it in our job postings. As a result, more women are applying and working in this role.

As a result of our more equitable job postings, we’re getting to meet women and other diverse candidates who may not have the experience or skill set we’ve traditionally seen, but are interested in development and fit exceptionally well into the Cooper culture. It’s opened up our talent pool and our breadth and depth of experiences, which results in a richer outlook.

You look more critically at the broader environment.

When you commit to safety, you don’t turn a blind eye to others’ unsafe practices. The more we look at our own biases, the more attuned we become to others’. We look at our partners, our investors, our vendors.

Cooper is the only construction company with a Parity Certification. We’re also the only COR-certified construction rental company, although many contractors we work with are COR-certified. These certifications show our commitment to our values. And they show us where there’s work to be done.

For example, our efforts have helped us identify areas where unconscious bias has ruled. Several of our branches didn’t have women’s washrooms. Our two personal protective equipment (PPE) suppliers didn’t have options for women – we had to go outside the industry to find a new supplier that did. Because women’s PPE is niche, it requires more time, effort and money to source. We discovered our boot program didn’t include winterized safety boots for women (and, coincidentally, they’re damned hard to find!).

What’s more, we’ve noticed women at Cooper who have worked in conditions shaped by unconscious bias internalized it to the point they were blind to the issues. As our awareness grows and we make changes, we realize just how systemic the issues are..

When we know better, we do better.

It hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. We’ve had our stumbling points; no one’s perfect. When we embarked on our DEI journey, we conducted a company-wide survey and asked our employees for feedback.

The result? A detailed spreadsheet with 52 initiatives. We tried to tackle 30 in the first year. Guess how that went.

The next year, we focused on our top 3. Lesson learned – the hotter, faster, more ambitious you start out, the more spectacularly you burn out.

We’re not a small organization. We’re taking baby steps – small, progressive, and supported. And we’re learning as we go, looking at what works and what doesn’t, and soliciting feedback along the way.

We’re not done.

If you could run a km in 6 minutes, and you stopped running, you’d cease to be able to hit that pace.

DEI is a practice. We’re never done. Parity certification isn’t a trophy to put on a shelf. And if you’re really serious about it, make sure your initiatives are backed by leadership.

It’s a commitment. It’s active and ongoing. And because we’ve identified it as a key focus and a key strategy, we hold ourselves accountable.

Because it’s important that people feel safe, supported and welcomed where they work.