The Year’s Most Inspiring Workplace Inclusiveness Stories: Canada’s Best Diversity Employers for 2014 Announced Today

TORONTO, Feb. 10, 2014 – This year’s winners of the Canada’s Best Diversity Employers competition will be announced at a special luncheon today at Toronto’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The 55 winning employers from across Canada are being recognized for a range of exceptional initiatives to attract and retain employees from diverse communities.

“This year’s competition was the strongest by far since the project’s inception,” says Richard Yerema, Author of Canada’s Top 100 Employers at Mediacorp Canada Inc., which manages the competition. “Creating an inclusive workplace isn’t just about ‘doing the right thing’ or even regulatory compliance anymore – the leaders who manage the nation’s most successful organizations now realize that you can’t lead your industry without it.”

Now entering its eighth year, the Canada’s Best Diversity Employers competition recognizes the nation’s leading organizations when it comes to creating inclusive workplaces for employees from five diverse groups: women; visible minorities; persons with disabilities; Aboriginal peoples; and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) peoples. Employers are selected by the editorial team at the Canada’s Top 100 Employers project, which manages the competition.

“Winning employers make inclusiveness part of their organizational DNA,” says Kristina Leung, Editor of the Canada’s Top 100 Employers project and lead editor on the Canada’s Best Diversity Employers competition. “They constantly search for areas in their organization where they can do a better job making employees and prospective employees from diverse communities feel welcome and valued.”

Here are several employer initiatives the editorial team singled out for special commendation this year:

• Sodexo Canada Ltd., for launching the “Willow Bean Café” in partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health and the Canadian Mental Health Association to provide employment opportunities and work experience to persons with mental health issues.
• Government of Manitoba, for a province-wide initiative to remove employment barriers in its public service, including establishing “safe space” environments for LGBT employees.
• Enbridge Inc., for encouraging more women to build engineering careers at the company, through a special employee networking group (“FeminEn – Females in Engineering”) dedicated to attracting and retaining more female engineers.
• CIBC, for reaching out to Aboriginal job-seekers and, in partnership with local Aboriginal employment groups, offering training sessions to help improve their resume-writing and interviewing skills – then hosting a special networking event with the bank’s recruiters and hiring managers.
• Stikeman Elliott, for an outreach program that encourages more visible minorities to join the firm after their legal studies, including an innovative program with the Black Business and Professionals Association that encourages more black undergraduate students to apply to law school.

The full list of this year’s winners and the editors’ detailed reasons for selecting each winner were posted today on the competition homepage:
http://www.CanadasTop100.com/diversity

For further information:
Tony Meehan, Publisher, Mediacorp Canada Inc.
416-964-6069 x9179

NT3