The good news: 70 per cent of Canadian companies have vision statements that reflect a commitment to diversity. The bad news: Far fewer take real action to bring this vision to reality within their workplaces. Those, in a nutshell, are the findings of a recent diversity survey of Canadian businesses conducted jointly by HRPAO and G-Force, a Montreal-based diversity consultancy.

The Corporate Diversity Assessment polled 830 organizations from a broad spectrum of industries and sizes to find out how corporations recognize the business case for diversity and how it translates into HR activities. The survey found that while a majority of respondents used diversity concepts as a guiding principle, actual diversity related initiatives were carried out by much fewer organizations-and those undertaken were typically not business oriented or results focused. «Overall workforce diversity management does not appear to be actively mainstreamed into corporate processes and operations to effectively address business challenges,” says G-Force CEO Adam Mongodin.

In analyzing the data, HRPAO and G-Force found that most organizations polled approach diversity in terms of legal compliance with equal opportunity/equity requirements. «The ‘obligation of means’ raises the question of whether commitment to diversity is substantial or ‘cosmetic,'” says Mongodin. «Plus, the fact that visible minorities continue to face under-employment and barriers to career progression «indicates that the equal opportunity/equity models are failing to deliver on promises.»

Source: quoted directly from HRPAO 360 

Full report is availalbe at HRThougtleader