Courtnie Barrett-Parks

Courtnie Barrett-Parks, (she/her) VP of equity, diversity and inclusion strategy for Randstad, believes wholeheartedly that DE&I isn’t just about checking a box. “It’s easy to create initiatives but difficult to change mindsets,” she explains, “and that’s where true diversity comes from.” Organizations may see the need for and understand the importance of DE&I, but they don’t always understand that creating an initiative isn’t enough — it takes work and education to create a mindset shift before real change can happen.

And creating real and measurable change in DE&I is where Barrett-Parks shines. Over the last five years, she has built up Randstad’s DE&I team to five strategists, ensuring a strategist is touching every account to provide support and clarity in their DE&I hiring goals and practices. Barrett-Parks has also worked with Randstad Canada to launch its DE&I consulting division from the ground up.

Additionally, Barrett-Parks creates specific diversity targets for clients with astounding success; one notable example is exceeding a client’s gender diversity hiring target in engineering by 10%. This was due to creating a sound strategy for the client, which created a 90% offer acceptance rate with the client for gender diversity.

It’s easy to create initiatives but difficult to change mindsets, and that’s where true diversity comes from.

Barrett-Parks works with clients to identify where they are unknowingly creating their own barriers to diversity in their own organizations, such as a lack of representation in specific demographics, too much rigidity around ideal candidates, or outdated policies and procedures that create inherent exclusion.

One typical approach organizations take to achieving diversity is “blind” hiring, where only the qualifications of the candidate are used to determine their potential. However, Barrett-Parks notes that while this practice may help remove some unconscious bias through the elimination of names that lead to assumptions on gender, race or ethnicity, it doesn’t always help to find diversity. “It’s important to continue have a mindset change rather than simply implementing blind hiring,” she explains, “because you may not be getting the candidates you’re looking for as the qualifications, job description or brand may not be appealing to them.” To that end, she emphasizes to every client the importance of assessing gaps unique to your organization and developing a customized approach as opposed to adapting a turnkey solution.