March 15, 2021
By Jim Wilson, Canadian HR Reporter
When it comes to making immigrants feel welcome in the workplace, top-level management can only do so much. In reality, the ones who make or break efforts to build immigrant-inclusive teams are middle managers, according to Adwoa Buahene, CEO of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC).
“Middle managers are an interesting group to look at ─ while organizational change needs leadership from the top, they are not without power,” says Buahene. “The middle manager really translates strategy that’s delivered, cascaded down into everyday action. So the middle managers are really one of the key components to creating inclusion because every team meeting, every assignment given, every project designed, every client interaction, usually it’s the middle manager that controls who does what.”
In an interview with Canadian HR Reporter, Buahene talked about the recent TRIEC report Make or Break: How middle managers and executives can build immigrant-inclusive teams.