Health Canada Recognized Among Canada's Best Diversity Employers

News Release
2011-28
February 21, 2011
For immediate release

OTTAWA - Health Canada is honoured to be named one of Canada's Best Diversity Employers for 2011 by Mediacorp Canada Inc.

The award recognizes organizations that demonstrate exceptional workplace diversity and inclusiveness programs. This is the second straight year Health Canada has been chosen for this accomplishment.

"Health Canada has made tremendous progress over the years to embrace diversity," said Gerard Etienne, Director General of Human Resources at Health Canada. "We will continue to demonstrate our clear commitment to inclusiveness in the workplace by practising positive behaviours and challenging biases and behaviours which undermine inclusion."

Canada's Best Employers competition examined how employers address a range of diversity initiatives covering five major employee groups: Women; Visible minorities; Persons with disabilities; Aboriginal peoples; and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered/Transsexual (LGBT) peoples.

Health Canada has been noted for integrating diversity accountability at all levels of the organization. Among its achievements:

• Establishing employment equity coordinators department-wide, supported by diversity and employment equity champions in senior management, with advisory committees comprised of employee volunteers providing feedback on diversity initiatives.
• Having created a long-standing employee network group for LGBT, with a senior manager acting as champion of LGBT issues throughout the organization.
• Setting up a central fund dedicated to accommodation requests from employees with a disability, which has had a positive impact in creating awareness and inclusive workplaces for persons with a disability.
• Requiring recruitment selection committees to complete training in bias-free selection, building diverse work teams, Aboriginal awareness, and accommodation provisions for employees with a disability.
• Incorporating diversity measures within the performance management process for all managerial staff.

To determine the 2011 winners of the Canada's Best Diversity Employers competition, Mediacorp editors reviewed the applications of employers that applied for the 2011 Canada's Top 100 Employers project, some 2,700 employers across Canada.

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