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By Howard Levitt and Jarret Janis

As corporate Canada continues to embrace equity, diversity and inclusion — the hallmarks of culturally progressive workplaces, often referred to as “woke” — executives find themselves encountering new employment law risks. While fostering an equitable and inclusive work environment is ostensibly laudable, it can also present legal challenges, particularly for leaders of companies where social and cultural issues are tightly woven into business operations.

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In this “woke” new world, there are thousands of Canadian executives and high-level managers who find themselves lost navigating these often subtle and obscure boundaries. Nowhere is this more apparent than in male-dominated industries, such as oil and gas, mining, construction and many others, in which multiple micro-cultures exist across the business.

In the oil and gas industry, for example, it is not uncommon for an employee to spend years, even decades, working their way up in a male-dominated camp in northern Alberta, immersed in what might be described as a “locker room” culture, with a uniquely crass, blunt and “macho” style of communication. An environment where fitting in and building connections demands a certain understanding and cultural assimilation. This is true for the derrick hand all the way up to the rig manager.

Some of these field employees will eventually make the leap to senior management — and even the C-suite — thanks in part to...

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