Reconciliation is recruitment: A strategic workforce solution (June 2025 Talent Canada) by Tanya Tourangeau, challenges organizations to shift from reactive to proactive hiring by creating welcoming environments—such as offering Indigenous-specific onboarding, culturally safe spaces, and bereavement leave for traditional practices.
Tourangeau frames these actions not as charity, but as deliberate workforce strategies essential for future competitiveness. She calls on HR leaders to engage meaningfully with Indigenous communities, and align recruitment with broader reconciliation commitments.
Excerpt:
Reconciliation isn’t charity. It’s strategy. It’s smart economics. It makes good business sense.
Across Canada, organizations are grappling with labour shortages, aging workforces, and the growing demand for equity, diversity, and inclusion. Yet one of the most promising, resilient, and ready workforces is too often overlooked: Indigenous Peoples; First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.
That’s not by accident. Many people and systems have inherited outdated assumptions shaped by governments and institutions that deliberately excluded Indigenous Peoples from participating fully in the economy. This isn’t just history. It’s still happening in how decisions are made, how hiring is approached, and how talent is recognized or ignored.
It’s time to change that…