Career Advancement in Corporate Canada: A Focus on Visible Minorities – Diversity & Inclusion Practices (Report)

This report is the fifth and final in the Career Advancement in Corporate Canada: A Focus on Visible Minorities series, which explores how visible minority women and men perceive their career advancement and development in corporate Canada. The series is based on research conducted by Catalyst and the Diversity Institute in Management & Technology at Ryerson Institute in Toronto. The report highlights Catalyst Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Practices that illustrate the recommendations from the series.

Impetus: By 2017, visible minorities are expected to represent one in five people in Canada’s available workforce; by 2011, they will comprise all net growth in the labour force. These talented, hard-working women and men will be critical to the performance of Canadian companies and firms in the decades to come. There is evidence that diversity programs are relatively underutilized in Canada.

Methodology: To obtain the D&I Practices, some of which have won the Catalyst Award, Catalyst interviewed experts from a range of businesses about practice history and structure. The practices are complemented with data from a survey of 39 employers, a survey of more than 17,000 individuals in 43 organizations, and interviews and focus groups of both visible minority and white/Caucasian women and men from diverse industries and regions.

Findings:
D&I Practices showcase organizational initiatives that:

• Integrate positive diversity values into talent management goals, cycles, and processes.
• Provide structural safeguards against disadvantage by modifying systems for identifying best talent.
• Reduce stereotyping in the workplace, build awareness, and overcome potential managerial bias toward underrepresented groups.
• Support inclusion at the manager-employee level by identifying inclusive manager behaviors.
• Help visible minorities develop critical relationships by providing them with networking opportunities across a variety of constituencies
• Institute a reciprocal mentoring practice that allows participants to tailor the program to suit their own needs.

Lead Sponsor: RBC Financial Group

Participating Sponsors: Deloitte & Touche, IBM Canada
Supporting Sponsors: Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration