Right now, as you’re reading this, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is putting out almost 10,000 megawatts of electricity for the province of Ontario. Its total capacity—thanks to three nuclear, five fossil, 64 hydroelectric and three wind generating plants—amounts to 22,000 megawatts, making it one of the largest power generators in North America.

To paraphrase another company’s slogan, OPG’s product may be power but its strength is people.

“It’s stepping back from the day to day ‘Gotta find something to plug into the vacancy!’ and looking at who needs to be developed and who is ready for the next step," says Kim Taylor, manager of recruitment solutions and diversity. “So it’s a concerted effort on our part to do a better job in terms of performance feedback and linking performance feedback with development plans.”

What that means for OPG is creating a culture where all employees can flourish by giving them equal access to opportunities to move through the company. No matter who they are. But that hasn’t come and doesn’t come without the company itself doing a fair bit of self-examination.

Taylor runs through the list: “Are we one that truly respects and values diversity? And do people see that right from the minute they meet the OPG employee, the OPG ambassador, the recruitment booth to the moment they join the company? And can we fulfill that promise that we will provide an environment that allows people to be authentic and also to achieve their full potential?”

In a company of this size and complexity, “a huge terrain”, that’s spread from Ontario’s sparsely-populated north to its densely-populated south, “It’s a constant challenge”, says Taylor. “And we’re always looking for new ways to introduce new and different things to try and get the results that we need.”

OPG has been successful in its diversity efforts mainly because of its spirit of collaboration both inside and outside the company, and through its corporate and local diversity committees made up of employees, union members and management. Those efforts have resulted in a cooperative initiative with Ryerson University called the Discover Engineering Summer Camp for young women considering careers in non-traditional fields, and mentoring programs for foreign-trained workers. Just to name a few.

Taylor admits that increasing numbers in under-represented groups, especially persons with disabilities, has been a “stubborn challenge” that has persisted despite the introduction of various programs. Taylor is constantly questioning the situation: “Where can we go to get an integrated approach to this? How can we get the word out to those communities that we really really want them to apply?”

She relies on those organizations that serve the disability community.  But if Taylor’s found out anything over the years, it’s that there is no ‘cookie cutter’ approach to diversity.

“It’s more than just compliance. It is crucial in our mind to demonstrate that commitment (to diversity) in a whole bunch of ways,” she says. “We have a well-established principle that diversity here, equity here, is done in collaboration to build really strong and robust programs. That’s what we need. And we need the input and perspective of a lot of different people.”

Case in point: OPG’s childcare centre—an initiative conceived and set up by a group of determined parents. 

“And so the company said, ‘Okay, put together a proposal, tell us how it’s going to work and we’ll talk’,” says Taylor. “At the end of the day we ended up with a childcare centre which is still run by a separate employee board. It’s not the company running the centre. It isn’t just about somebody in head office saying ‘we’re going to do X, Y and Z.’ We link up with people who put up their hand and said, ‘We think this is important. We want to do something’.”

Examples such as the daycare just go to show why diversity works at OPG.