Themes/Sessions

1)      Conditions for Success: Inclusive Strategies for Recruiting, Retaining and Measuring Diversity 

2)      Building Cross-Cultural Competencies & Managing Talent in Diversity:  Strategies for the day to day work-life and future prospects 

3)      Leveraging the Talents of Multiple Generations: Gen Y, Gen X and Baby Boomers 

4)      Using and Implementing New Technologies in the Workplace

5)      Strategies for Accommodating Peoples with Disabilities in the workplace

  

 

Conditions for Success: Inclusive Strategies for Recruiting, Retaining and Measuring Diversity

Table 1: Nikhat Rasheed- Senior Project Manager, CON*NECT Strategic Alliances

Table 2:  Valerie Alphonso, Community Outreach, Diversity without Borders

Recorder/Facilitator:

 

Description:

With baby boomers retiring and falling birth rates, there will simply not be enough skilled people in Canada to meet all the future labour needs. To fill this gap, Canada is taking in skilled immigrants with education, work experience and talent.  By 2011 all net labour force growth will be newcomers. How is your organization preparing to avoid this foreseeable crunch for talent? Do you have the right conditions in place to accommodate and recruit newcomers, immigrants and other minority groups? Do your HR practices tap into the widest amount of talent available? How do you measure whether your diversity strategies are working?

 

Questions

1.      How do expectations in the labour market play a role in employee recruitment and retention and how is your organization preparing for this? Do you have the right conditions in place?

  

·         Is Senior Management on Board? Do they realize the need to build cross-cultural competencies? Is this a priority for your organization?

·         Are staff on board? Does diversity reach all levels of staff? Is it a priority for everyone?

·         Is there any diversity in your staff at the moment?  How representative is your workplace?

·         Are you doing anything that would discourage or exclude newcomers, minority groups or peoples with disabilities from applying to job opportunities?

·         What changes do you need to put in place to make recruitment more attractive to newcomers and other minority groups? 

·         Have you established networks in the skilled immigrant pool?                    

·         Do you know of places that help with recruitment skilled immigrants and other minority groups?

 

 

2. What does your organization do to create a more “welcoming” workplace for newcomers?

  

Structural Accommodation

a)      Do you reasonably accommodate different religions, cultures and work ethic (such as facilities like prayer rooms or alternate arrangements for mandatory meetings when they fall on religious or cultural holidays, respect for different dietary needs, etc)

 

Communication Barriers

b)      What about small, every day communication barriers? (such as, exclusive small talk/jokes, or a cultural dimensions such as respect for hierarchy which may prevent some immigrants from effectively contributing to team discussions) How do you handle these situations, what can staff/employees do better? What is a good way to manage this?

 

Resources and Networks

c)      Do you offer resources to help newcomers (help them connect to settlement servies,   support networks) Do you ever have diversity networking events where you can share career development ideas, challenges, successes? 

3.      How do you know these strategies are working? How do you measure success? What are some ways to do this?

·         Audits

·         Focus groups

·         Staff satisfaction surveys

·         Benchmarking

·         Number of promotions of “diverse” groups

·         Other ideas? (see hand out for more on this)

 

Building Cross-Cultural Competencies, Managing Talent

Table 1: Racquel Sevilla (TRIEC- Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council & hireimmigrants.ca)

Table 2: Laura Burke (hireimmigrants.ca)

Table 3: Karen Lior (Executive Director, Toronto Training Board)

Recorder/Facilitator:

 

Description:

So, your organization already has a diversity strategy and policy.  You have achieved the basic “conditions for success” and yet there are still problems.  What are the everyday issues coming up and how do you deal with them? How do you build cross-cultural competencies for all staff? What are some good strategies and tools available to deal with this?

  

All employees need opportunities to optimize their skills and competencies. For skilled immigrants, people’s with disabilities and other minority groups, these conditions may be different.  This is especially important if skilled immigrants and other minority groups who are not working to their capacity and have been employed at more junior positions than their education and work experience deserve. Fostering the right conditions- for support, communication, and measurement- can maximize your successes and accelerate your organization’s immigrant readiness. This session will explore different strategies for building cross-cultural competencies with staff and providing immigrants and other minority groups the opportunity to enhance their skills. 

 

Questions

1. What is your organization doing to build “cross-cultural competencies” across management and staff?  What does having “cross-cultural competencies” mean? What is working? What isn’t working?

Example:

Mentoring is a good way to build cross cultural competencies- it gives staff an opportunity to work with skilled immigrants. Are there other ideas? Networking events, job-shadowing, two-way feedback...?

  

2.  What opportunities do you provide to optimize the skills and talents of immigrants, people’s with disabilities and other minority groups?

 

a. Skill set maximization and development- give them opportunities to work on special projects that take in their perspectives on new techniques, problem solving.

 

b. Do you have a system for managing performance? Is there regular feedback? Do you set goals, expectations, how is the communication?

 

c. Setting Expectations at the Beginning: Do you set clear expectations for the employee at the beginning? Do you communicate your organizational goals and vision and explain how the new employee (immigrant, youth, women, peoples with disabilities) will fit into that vision?

 

d.Constructive and Ongoing Feedback: If the employee is not performing to yours satisfaction, express your concerns in productive ways by providing examples and reiterating expectations. Then outline a practical approach with dates and targets.

 

e. Do you incorporate two-way feedback into daily operations and ensure that positive and constructive feedback is a natural and frequent aspect of the work environment?

 

f. Job-shadowing/job-sharing: give skilled immigrants opportunities to learn and see what other areas of your organization are doing so they can gain a deeper understanding and perspective on career goals in context of your organization.

 

Leveraging the Talents of Multiple Generations: Generation Y, Generation X, Baby Boomers

Table 1: Janice Rudkowski, Director, Marketing & Communications, Career Edge Organization

Table 2: Karina Rotenstein from HotDocs Film Festival

Table 3: Lori Smith, Partnerships Manager, Toronto Training Board

Recorder/Co-facilitator:

 

Description:

Generational challenges can manifest themselves in many ways. For example, you may experience low levels of engagement among your staff, particularly younger hires, or your leaders may complain that younger employees are “not respectful of authority” or do not “work hard.” When recruiting new talent, your leaders may have difficulty finding candidates who will fit into roles as they are currently defined. Resolving challenges such as these starts by looking at the root cause – the very unique perspectives and attributes each generation brings to your workplace. This session will explore the challenges and strengths of a multigenerational workplace, different ways workplaces are accommodating Gen Y.

 

Questions

1) In today’s workforce, there are so many different generations at work with different ideas, skills and world views. What are the major differences between the “older generation” and “younger generation” work ethic? How do you manage these different attitudes?

 

2) Misconceptions about older and younger workers are common in the workplace.  Such misconceptions include “older workers are resistant to change “or “older workers are less productive”. Gen Y is often looked upon as “over confident, narcissistic and lazy”. How can workplaces address those attitudes? Do you have other examples of misconceptions in the workplace?

 

3) What are the strengths and challenges that arise from so many different generations at work? What are “younger generations good at, and what are older generations good at and how can we encourage communication and teamwork amongst these different groups?

 

4) How does your workplace accommodate, recruit and retain new talent in “Gen Y”? ( do you offer better work-life balance, more perks, more consistent feedback)  Are workplaces expected to customize careers to fit each individual generation?

 

5) Gen Ys are estimated to access social networking sites for 9 hours a day (CBC report). Does your organization set boundaries regarding accessing these websites at work? (facebook, twitter, my space...).  Is it possible to leverage Gen Y’s knowledge and familiarity with these new technologies to your workplace benefit?

 

Using and Implementing New Technologies in the Workplace

Table 1: Marco Campana, Online Capacity Development Manager, OCASI

Table 2: Christopher Wulff, Communications Officer, Social Planning Toronto

Table 3: Jane Zhang, Program Manager, Techsoup Canada

Recorder/Facilitator:

 

Description:

“Half of the jobs people will have in 15 years time will require skills to operate technology that is not yet invented….  More than half of the people that will make up Ontario’s workforcein 2015 are already working”(Labour Force Readiness Plan, 2008).

 

Open Source, social media, web 2.0, new technologies- how do you keep up? How do you know what technologies to use or discard? Technology alone is never a solution: it’s about how staff can leverage technology for efficiency and mission effectiveness. This session will review some of the new technologies available and explore the challenges of implementation. Finally, can Gen Y digital natives, potentially help your organization leverage the use of new technology?

 

1) What types of new technologies should organizations and staff be aware of? (collaboration tools, project management tools, CRM’s)  What types of technology make organizations more competitive?

 

2) What are the benefits of using collaborative technology tools- like wikis, basecamp, blogs, google docs, open source? Why bother with them?

 

3) How do you create “technology” champions in the organization and how do you get resistors to try out new technology?

 

4) Are you leveraging the technology knowledge of your younger more “tech savvy” staff? Are you open to new ways of doing things?

 

5)How do you determine what tool is right for your organizations goal and missions? Do you have some kind of “technology plan” in place to help you stay up to date? Do you use consultants? How do make sure that staff at every level understand and support how technology can improve efficiency and mission effectiveness?

 

6) Are organizations and businesses less competitive if they do not implement new technological changes?

 

7) Are there issues with the training and development of more complex technology with older employees? How does your organization get around this?

 

8) Does the amount of technology available in your workplace lead to too much multi tasking? (LexisNexus survey findings) (Do you find yourself on twitter, facebook, email, blogs, news sites, google etc)

 

Strategies for Accommodating Persons with Disabilities

Table 1: Trevor Snow, Job Developer/Employment Specialist for the Workplace Essential Skills Partnership  Program.

Table 2: Honey Crossley, Executive Director, Working Skills Centre

Recorder/Facilitator:

 

Many professionals assume that accommodating people with disabilities in their programs will be prohibitively expensive. In fact, many accommodations are cost- free or quite inexpensive.  The key to finding low-cost solutions is to foster open communication with the person with a disability and to think broadly about the possibilities and resources available to them and to your organization. Join this discussion to identify basic accommodation issues for persons with disabilities and explore innovative ways to provide “reasonable” accommodations that will maximize the talents of your employees and benefit the employer 

 

Questions:

1. What is the “duty to accommodate"? (employers responsibilities and rights)

2. What are “reasonable” accommodations and the limitations of “undue hardships”

a. What factors are considered in determining whether the cost of accommodation is undue hardship?

b. Is there a limit on how much an employer must spend to accommodate an employee?

c. What is the average cost to an employer to accommodate?

d. What about health and safety requirements?

 

3.Strategies beyond reasonable accommodations:

a. What options does an employer have if they do not know how to accommodate?

b. What strategies can employers and employees use to make sure their needs are met?

     i.      Have you asked what are the needs of the employee?

    ii.      What kind of accommodations can employees ask for?       

    iii.      How do accommodations for persons with physical disabilities differ from those with mental disabilities?

    iv.      What if you have set up reasonable accommodations and things are still not working? How do you manage under-performance? How do you manage unsatisfied employees/employers?

 

 4. Persons with disabilities are talented, capable and excellent employees. How can employers have a more inclusive hiring process to include them? What things should they consider? And how should a person with disabilities go about finding an employer?

a. Should a person with a disability go about their job search differently than the “general populace”?

b. What services should employers be aware of to help them recruit talented employees who have disabilities?

c.  Are there any toolkits, basic strategies or processes for recruiting, interviewing and hiring persons with disabilities?

  

5. What is Disclosure?

a) Why should an employee disclose?

b) What / how much should an employee disclose to your employer?

c) What factors should be taken into consideration before employees decide when to disclose?

 

 

6.How does Workplace Essential Skills Partnership (WESP) benefit both Job Seeker and Employer?