The landmark Bill establishes a legislated framework for the prevention and timely removal of barriers to accessibility. These barriers now limit equitable access to employment, education, job training, communications, housing, transportation, health care and social services, as well as to goods, facilities and other services throughout the province.

Barrier-Free Manitoba has been advocating for strong and effective provincial accessibility-rights legislation since 2008. The Bill follows five previous discussion and policy papers on accessibility rights that have been released by the Government. The Bill also responds to the key recommendations made earlier this year by the Accessibility Advisory Council, which includes representatives from the business, seniors and municipal sectors, as well as from Manitoba’s disability community.

“This promises to be ‘game changing’ legislation that provides real and lasting benefits for persons with disabilities, their families and their communities,” said Jeannette DeLong, a member of Barrier-Free Manitoba’s Steering Committee. “The bill is a giant step toward making the vision of an inclusive society a reality for all Manitobans.”

“With disability discrimination accounting for 51% of all formal complaints lodged with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission last year, it’s abundantly clear that we continue to have system-wide problems,” said Dale Kendel, another Steering Committee member. “This type of legislation is the only reasonable, responsible and realistic way to address the pervasive barriers faced by persons with disabilities.”

The Government’s approach builds on the experience gained through accessibility-rights legislation already in place in a growing number of jurisdictions around the world. The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act, for example, was passed with all-party, all-member support in 2005.

Barrier-Free Manitoba (www.barrierfreemb.com) is a non-partisan, non-profit, cross-disability initiative.

“It’s critical for organizations to understand how diversity and inclusion plays a practical role in staffing, recruiting, retaining, and engaging members and volunteers.” ~ John H. Graham IV, president/CEO, ASAE

By Donna J. Jodhan

In so many cases employers need some guidance when it comes to ensuring that they choose the right technology to suit the needs of their blind and partially sighted employees.

The one major factor to keep in mind is this:  Each blind and/or partially sighted person is different and as a result, their needs are also different.  No two blind and/or partially sighted persons are exactly the same.  There is a false perception that blind and partially sighted persons may probably have the same needs.  This is false and should be addressed.

There are varying degrees of blindness.  In other words, one person may have a different level of vision than someone else.  Being described as blind may vary from someone with absolutely no vision to someone with enough vision to read large print texts. And of course there is a wide range of levels in between.

Some blind people use Braille while others do not.  Some blind people are able to use screen magnifiers while others are unable to do so.  Some people work faster with screen enlargers while others work faster with screen readers.

This is a lot for employers to digest but in the final analysis, blind and partially sighted employees are the best experts when it comes to choosing the right technology for themselves.  Bottom line: ask them what they need.

I’m Donna J. Jodhan your free lance writer and roving reporter wishing you a terrific day.

For more of my blogs, please visit:

http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/blog

http://www.sterlingcreations.com/businessdesk.htm,  and

www.donnajodhan.blogspot.com.

We all spend so much time in the workplace trying to deal with diversity.

In this article, I would like to inspire you to look beyond demographic factors that we normally consider when we think of diversity: race, religion, political leanings, etc. This even includes the new hot topic — generational diversity.

Thinking solely in terms of demographic factors can lead to statements like “we need to be more ethnically diverse,” or “we need to be more focused on the different ages of our workforce.” Those insights are all valuable and worthwhile only when there is a well understood and communicated rationale behind them. Often, many of us don’t take the time to ask ourselves why we want more diversity.

When we look solely on demographic factors, we start to separate people into groups. I’ve often heard phrases such as “Generation X wants this.” I’ll even agree that such statements have sound research to back them up. However, only looking at people in terms of the groups that they happen to be in is diametrically opposed to the real goal of diversity.

The real goal of diversity to hire and nurture the best people for the jobs that we have, regardless of age, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, height, eye color, so there is a great mix of people who bring varied talents to the table. I’m going to challenge you to shift your thinking to terms that have real meaning at work: knowledge, skills and abilities.

Focusing in on just one aspect of who a person is diminishes the person as a whole and their role at work. Remember, it’s people first. Everyone around you at work is a person first (OK, maybe there are a few robots). Everyone comes into the workforce with their own special skills, knowledge and abilities that might have been learned through school experience, previous work experience and life experiences.

If the company has done a good job matching knowledge, skills and abilities (what HR calls KSAs), then all other differences need to take a minor role. This will let the person’s talent come to the forefront (or not, as the case may be).

Seek out those with different skill sets. What can you learn from them? Does it really matter if they are younger or older or fit some other demographic background? There is so much knowledge out there and you will never find it unless you look for it.

Gravitate toward the people who can help you learn and achieve your own goals, no matter how different they may be from you. It may be idealistic, but maybe you can help them reach their goals as well. This is why networking gets such good publicity — it works.

The end result might just be a diverse group of people that bring all the necessary ingredients to make a great workforce. And isn’t that what you’ve wanted all along?

Vicki Amsinger is the owner of Vela HR Consulting Inc. which provides integrated solutions to assist businesses in effectively managing their HR responsibilities, risks and issues. She can be reached at Vicki@velahrconsulting.com. Her website is http://velahrconsulting.com.

The most successful organizations focus on embedding the principles of diversity in their culture and management systems. These organizations truly value diversity and recognise it in the way they do business.

Diversity is reflected in the government’s approach to people management, including performance management. It is a core element in leadership and leadership development and reinforced through performance feedback and assessment.

The benefits of diversity in the public service

Increased innovation

A diverse workforce gives organizations a broader range of ideas and insights to draw on in decision making and policy development. Diversity makes good business sense.

Improved service to clients

A workplace that reflects the population will understand its clients better, which will lead to improved service. A diverse workplace will have good communication with its clients based on a deep understanding of the needs across the province.

Competitive management practices

Organizations that value and capitalise on employee diversity have productive and fulfilling workplaces which help them attract and retain employees. This leads to savings in recruitment and training costs, as well as maintaining corporate knowledge and expertise.

Modelling what we promote

Some public service ministries and agencies have a role in promoting principles of equity and productive diversity in the employment practices of Saskatchewan businesses. It is therefore important that the public service itself demonstrates these principles.

Source: Government of Saskatchewan, http://www.cs.gov.sk.ca/why.

Rona Abramovitch, Ryerson University’s advisor on outreach and access, PhD candidate Ellen Hibbard and the Anti-Racism Coalition (ARC) are recipients of the first Alan Shepard Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Award. Named after the former provost and vice-president, academic, the annual award recognizes an individual, team and/or organization at Ryerson with an outstanding track record of providing services for diverse populations, fostering an inclusive environment in and/or out of the classroom, and/or addressing equity.

Robyn Tingley, vice president, human resources for North America and Latin America, Ingram Micro Inc., a global wholesale technology distributor, has been named one of the Most Powerful & Influential Women by the California Diversity Council (CADC). Prior to joining Ingram Micro, Tingley was vice president of communications and public affairs for Bell Aliant, a Canadian in telecommunications leader.

Starbucks has named Gowling LaFleur Henderson LLP as the recipient of its International Excellence in Diversity Award for 2012, the first Canadian law firm to receive the award. Gowlings was recognized for its efforts to enhance diversity and promote inclusion — both within the firm and across the legal profession. Starbucks has conducted an annual diversity survey of its legal service providers around the world since 2009.

The following are recipients of this year’s Diversity Catalyst Awards given out annually by the University of Iowa:  Sauvik Goswami, diversity liaison for UI Student Government (Student Award), Brad M. Brunick, Jake Christensen, Katie Imborek, Tonya L. Peeples and Nicole L. Nisly (Faculty/Staff Awards).

DiversityInc, a publication that covers diversity in the workplace, has released its 14th annual list of the Top 50 Companies for Diversity. The list ranks 893 companies based on four key areas of diversity management: CEO Commitment, Human Capital, Corporate and Organization Communications, and Supplier Diversity. For the entire DiversityInc Top 50 list, http://www.diversityinc.com/the-diversityinc-top-50-companies-for-diversity-2013/..

C. Quincy Ewell, an attorney in the corporate & securities section of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., has received the first Alumni Diversity Award for Leadership in the Legal Profession from the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law and the Student Bar Association’s Diversity Committee. The award was created to honor alumni who have demonstrated a commitment to Penn State Law’s goal of being a diverse and mutually supportive community which provides a climate of sensitivity, open-mindedness, and respect.

Three individuals and one organization have been recognized by the University of Utah Office for Equity and Diversity for leadership and commitment to inclusion at the university. The honorees are students Emilio Camu and Geneva Thompson, faculty member Adrienne Cachelin, and the Native American Research Institute.

DTE Energy was recognized by Black EOE Journal as a 2013 Best of the Best company for its work in promoting and valuing diversity in the workplace. Black EOE Journal polled hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies in a variety of industries including the energy sector, finance, higher education and healthcare. The publication evaluated companies’ outreach and accessibility to, and pursuit diverse applicants and disadvantaged business owners; as well as policies that support advancement, equal access and inclusion of all individuals. John Eley Jr., DTE Energy’s senior manager of corporate procurement and supplier diversity, was named one of Minority Business News USA magazine’s Top 75 Leading Men in Corporate Supplier Diversity for 2013.

BNY Mellon and the investment company’s global head of talent strategy have received top honors for gender equality in the workplace for the second year in a row from The Times of London and Opportunity Now. BNY Mellon made The Times’ annual list of the UK’s Top 50 Employers for Women and Sheena Wilson, the driving force behind the organization’s diversity and inclusion programs, earned the Directing Diverse Talent Award.

The Alliance for Workplace Excellence (AWE) has announced its 2013 Workplace Excellence Seal of Approval winners. The winners demonstrated outstanding commitment to balanced leadership and the overall success of their workforce, based on a number of criteria, including diverse and inclusion practices. For the complete list, http://www.excellentworkplace.org/awards-workplace.html.

Habitat for Humanity received the 2013 Disability Inclusion Award at the InterAction annual forum last month. The award recognized Habitat’s programming to promote community living for individuals with intellectual disabilities in Romania, psychosocial support to individuals with mental disabilities in Kyrgyzstan and job skills development and soft loans for businesses in Indonesia.

Thompson Hine LLP announced that Robyn Minter Smyers, chair of the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion Initiative has been presented with the Leadership Excellence Award from the Ohio Diversity Council. The award recognizes senior leaders making a significant impact through leadership of diversity and multicultural initiatives.

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, has been honored with an award for her gay rights advocacy. She accepted the award at the Equality Forum‘s annual conference on civil rights for lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people after US officials gave her a special visa to attend the event. Castro is director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education and is the country’s most prominent gay rights activist.

The CNIB was honoured with the 2013 Canadian Helen Keller Centre (CHKC) Award for its exceptional community service on April 25th, 2013 at the Ninth Annual CHKC Awards Luncheon at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

Every year the Canadian Helen Keller Centre (CHKC), in conjunction with The Canadian Foundation for Physically Disabled Persons, hosts a luncheon to raise funds for the many services at CHKC. The luncheon honours organizations and individuals who have made a difference in the lives of persons with vision, hearing and combined vision-hearing impairments.

This year’s winner the CNIB is a nationally-run charity organization that works passionately to improve the lives of Canadians living with vision impairments. The CNIB provides community-based support while working hand-in-hand with Canadians to advocate for a barrier-free society. Through its research initiatives and dedication to the vision impaired the CNIB has improved the lives of Canadians struggling with vision loss since 1918.

Also presented at the luncheon was the King Clancy Award. This year’s recipients of the King Clancy Award are the medal winners from London 2012 Paralympics. They included: Patrick Anderson, gold medal, wheelchair basketball. Also named Ontario 2012 Male Athlete of the Year with a Disability, David Durepos, gold medal, wheelchair basketball, Virginia McLachlan, bronze medal, athletics, Nathan Stein, silver medal, swimming, and Michelle Stilwell, gold and silver medal, athletics.

Distinguished guests of the luncheon included Kathleen Wynne, premier of Ontario, David C. Onley, lieutenant governor of Ontario, Cindy Accardi, executive director, Rotary Cheshire Homes and Canadian Helen Keller Centre, John Rafferty, CEO, CNIB, Sriram Lyer, president/CEO, ICIC Bank of Canada, the Honourable Vim Kochhar and Sabi Marwah, vice-chairman/COO, Scotiabank.

About Canadian Helen Keller Centre: The CHKC works to integrate Canadians who are deaf- blind into society through access to information and services that meet their specific needs. They assist persons living with vision impairment to achieve independence and self-reliance by maximizing their abilities. Since 2001 the CHKC has been providing free training in lifestyle skills and technology to persons who are deaf-blind.

A growing number of people are posting their profiles online, browsing candidates and making connections—but they’re looking not for mates, but for mentors. MentorCity’s online mentor-matching site connects mentees with a mentor and guides them through the mentoring process.

“My mentor’s advice was extremely helpful, and something I couldn’t have come up with on my own,” says Harpreet Sahota, a 3^rd year university student,who found her first career mentor on www.MentorCity.com.

Now, MentorCity’s innovative mentor-matching system will be available to organizations worldwide that want to quickly and easily create their own mentoring program. 

Why Mentoring

• 75 per cent of executives say mentoring has played a key role in their careers (Source: American Society for Training & Development)
• 77 per cent of companies report that mentoring programs helped increase employee retention; 35 per cent of employees who do not receive regular mentoring look for another job within 12 months (Source:  ASTD)
• Mentoring has been found to increase managerial productivity by 88 per cent, while training alone has led to only a 24 per cent increase (Source: ASTD)

About MentorCity

MentorCity is a free online service that connects individuals to meaningful mentoring relationships, and creates mentoring communities for the private and public sector. To learn more, please visit https://www.mentorcity.com

MentorCity was founded in Toronto, Canada by Shawn Mintz, who has spent more than a decade in the career and employment services sector. Shawn has developed award-winning mentoring solutions that have helped thousands of people achieve greater success. 

by Evelina Silveira, President, Diversity At Work

So you have taken a look at your budget and your boss says there is no money for diversity and inclusion activities this year.  What do you do?  You started something great where you work and now – BANG!  You fear that you could lose the momentum you started.

There is no reason to let your budget constraints keep you from creating an inclusive workplace.  Here are a couple of easy low-cost and no cost actions you can take that do make a difference:

Make use of your existing resources.

 Do you have a company newsletter, intranet or know how to put a podcast together?  Capitalize on these avenues for delivering diversity information and education as well as use them as a forum for recognizing your diversity champions.  The intranet can be a great place to pose diversity related problems and ask employees for feedback.  Consider posting recent articles and eZines like the Inclusion Quarterly or links to websites like Diversity! in the workplace.   It cheap and you can keep employees up to date in a simple and efficient way.  Make use of these vehicles for communication.

Learn a foreign language for free.

Don’t let time or money get in the way of learning a new language.  Do a quick internet search, and you will find that indeed you can learn a language for free.  Or if you prefer, some public libraries subscribe to language courses for their patrons and this means you can access them at no cost.  I know that my local library has access to Mango Languages.  Check it out.  No excuses!

 Make your print materials easier to read.

 Just by increasing the size and simplifying the font you use can make a big difference in how people with low vision  can read your material.  Remembering to keep backgrounds light or white and use black font for best results.  This is simple and low-cost and makes  a huge difference.

 Save costs on advertising and pre-screening candidates.

 Have you checked out the non-profit agencies that help people with barriers to gain employment?

By circulating your ads to non-profit agencies, you stand a better chance of meeting your employment equity requirements by widening the pool of applicants.  You can save on advertising costs by giving the organization some criteria for pre-screening candidates.  This should save you time and ultimately money.

There are so many more ways to make diversity and inclusion a reality without breaking the bank.

For more ideas check out our eBook, Diversity and Inclusion on a Budget at http://yourdiversityatwork.com/ebook/.

Each year, the Alberta Human Rights Commission partners with the Alberta Chamber of Commerce to offer the Diversity Leadership Award of Distinction. This year’s award went to Chrysalis: An Alberta Society for Citizens with Disabilities for their outstanding achievements in embracing diversity in its workforce, encouraging respect and inclusion, and working toward eliminating discrimination and barriers to fair employment practices.

The inaugural Connect Legal Most Promising Immigrant Entrepreneur Awards were presented last month to 2 immigrant small businesses. The winners were Carolina Velez, ColombiaExotic, and Sanjay Pandrala, BUGMAN Pest Control Landscaping Services & Trading Company. The winners will each receive a $1,000 and a business mentoring session. Connect Legal provides legal education workshops and free legal services in collaboration with Toronto’s legal community.

Windigo Catering Limited Partnership, a business venture owned by five members of the Windigo First Nations Council in northwest Ontario, has won the prestigious Skookum Jim Award for exceptional achievement in the Canadian mining industry. Based in Sioux Lookout, Windigo Catering currently employs 66 people – 83 % of whom are Aboriginal. In addition to catering, Windigo provides camp management, laundry, janitorial, commissary and housekeeping services to Goldcorp Canada Ltd.‘s Musselwhite Mine at OpapimiskanLake.

Oncor, a Texas electric delivery company, handed out its Omnis Award to 3 organizations in recognition of their supplier diversity, business efforts and community outreach. The recipients were Hazel’s Hot Shot, Imagination Branding and TexCorp Communications.  The Corporate Rising Star Award was given to technology company CCCi. The Group Award went to Oncor’s communications group and the Individual Recognition Award to Chief Customer Officer Brenda Jackson.

Yum! Brands, Inc., the world’s largest restaurant company with more than 39,000 KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants in over 125 countries, has been awarded the International Franchise Association’s Ronald E. Harrison Award for its accomplishments in diversity and inclusion.

DiversityBusiness.com, a leading multicultural business website, announced the top honorees for its Champions of Diversity Award for 2013. This distinguished group of individuals is recognized for outstanding achievements in various diversity initiatives within their companies and communities. For the complete list, http://www.diversitybusiness.com/news/supplierdiversity/45201338.asp.

The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command’s (SPAWAR) commitment to diversity programs has been recognized by the National Society of Black Engineers. SPAWAR received this year’s Golden Torch Award for Government Diversity Leadership for contributions to diversity programs at the command, impact in local communities and commitment to furthering education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

The Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce created the Diversity Visionary Award in 2003 as a way to honor individuals in the community that should be recognized for their efforts, advancements, and contributions to ensuring diversity, inclusion, and equity within their own organizations and the community. The 2013 Diversity Visionary Award winner is Faye Richardson-Green, director of learning and development, Steelcase Inc.

The Diversity Department of the Writers Guild of America announced its honorees for the 2013 WGAW Writer Access Project, a program designed to address the issue of under-representation of diverse writers on television writing staffs, by identifying excellent, diverse writers with television experience, and to provide a resource for accessing their work to showrunners, industry executives, agents and managers. Lena Waithe and Dawn Comer Jefferson won for their submissions.

The 2013 CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Awards: Diversity Communications went to FedEx because of its shift in the management of diverse appeal to the company’s corporate communications team from human resources. Honorable Mentions went to Entergy Corp, Select Health of South Carolina and Turk Telekom.

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. was awarded first prize at the 2013 J-Win Diversity Awards, presented by the Japan Women’s Innovative Network (NPO J-Win), a nonprofit organization. The awards celebrate companies that set diversity and inclusion, in particular the advancement of women, as a priority issue, take a proactive approach to continuously promote female leaders, integrate diverse capabilities and ideas, and establish an innovative corporate culture to create new values.

The editorial board of HispanicBusiness has selected Carmen Castillo as the 2013 Woman of the Year. Castillo is not only the first female Hispanic CEO but also the owner of SDI International, a billion-dollar company.

The Ohio Psychological Association has selected 2 winners for the 2013 Michael Sullivan Diversity Scholarship. They are Jin Kim of University of California, Davis and David Lick of University of California, Los Angeles. The Michael Sullivan Diversity Scholarship Fund supports research, training and community projects in the area of diversity.