To our employees, our partners, our patrons and our community: thank you for keeping us accountable and for sharing experiences about your interactions with our brewery.
As previously stated, we take full responsibility for our actions. But we also intended to take the term action to heart. We heard many of you express the desire for us to be transparent and clear in terms of our actions, and we agree with you. This is why we wanted to provide a progress update to share with you what we’ve accomplished to date to ensure we implement change into our current environment which we hope will impact our future environment.
ACTION: Work with staff to identify and address areas where workplace culture does not reflect our fundamental values.
Reaction: We have partnered with a respected HR consulting agency, The Neutral Zone Coaching and Consulting Services, and asked them to audit our business and report their findings on the state of our internal culture. Since conducting a workplace climate assessment, Neutral Zone can attest that, “"The owners of Parallel 49 have engaged The Neutral Zone Coaching & Consulting Services Inc. to conduct a workplace climate assessment in response to allegations of misconduct, including racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and bullying attitudes and practices.
Initial interviews with current staff indicate that most have neither observed nor experienced the type of misconduct alleged on social media. Employees at Parallel 49 have however, expressed concerns regarding various managerial practices, policies and procedures, and communication breakdowns.
The owners and leadership team of Parallel 49 are taking prompt action to ensure that going forward, all concerns are addressed through improved training, consistent coaching and implementation of best HR practices, as recommended by The Neutral Zone."
”We are committed to continuing to work with The Neutral Zone and other third parties to address these findings. In addition to this, we have implemented an anonymous feedback forum where employees can share their experiences about workplace culture in a safe environment.
ACTION: Secure and hire an HR Professional to deliver a higher level of support for employees and facilitate ongoing employee engagement.
Reaction: We are in the process of interviewing for the position of a full-time HR Manager to support employees. They will be tasked with improving our corporate policy for the company and will hold all employees, management and owners accountable. Future updates will share these policies to ensure transparency.
ACTION: Explore a viable partnership with the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities, not only to better learn but fund, develop and enforce a program for owners, employees and customers.
Reaction: The team has secured a partnership with Ren Navarro (beer-diversity.com) from @beer_diversity to build out an action plan for management and the company as we work towards achieving a diverse and inclusive environment. We’ve met with Ren and are working with her team to build out an action plan we are excited to roll out.
ACTION: Sensitivity and management training for all levels of management, including our ownership group.
Reaction: We have engaged the Neutral Zone to create and administer training programs specific to our organization's needs. We understand this is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and we look forward to learning about the current gaps in our workplace and constructive ways we can address it.
We understand that while these actions and reactions are a big step forward for our organization, this will be a journey for us, and we are committed to doing better, and being better for our employees, patrons and the greater community.
Change is necessary. Accountability is important. Please know we are committed to this and hope these actions demonstrate our commitment to change.