Diversity in the Workplace September 24, 25 & 26, 2008 Toronto

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Workshops

Workshops 1:

9:00-noon   -   Diversity and Mentoring
Sarah Gayer, Sare and Associates

Mentoring can no longer be seen as just being “nice to have,” as organizations compete to attract talent and focus on unique ways to develop ties between diverse employees. Such programs and processes do not need to be complex or expensive to bring added value to the employer/employee relationship. Cross-cultural mentoring programs have been particularly successful in supporting diversity goals and strategies. This workshop focuses on how to create effective mentoring programs that contribute to both the individual development of diverse employees and in creating a culture of collaboration.

- Gaining senior management buy-in and visible support
- Informal versus formalized diversity mentoring programs
- Choosing and training mentors that appeal to your diverse organization
- Implementing a mentoring program to familiarize diverse employees with cultures and languages
- Building loyalty among diverse employees through mentoring
- Mentoring programs for new immigrants
- Linking mentoring to performance management, career and professional development, culture, company brand and business plan
- Strategies for mentors to communicate with culturally and linguistically diverse employees


Sarah Gayer is a is a Certified Human Resource Professional at Sare and Associates with over 15 years experience in the field of HR management. She has provided expertise to a variety of sectors. She has actively participated in the Human Resources Professional Association of Ontario (HRPAO) serving as a volunteer, participating in their mentoring program and offering workshops to the Hire Authority. Sarah currently facilitates programs in the Human Resources Management Program and Supervisory/Management Program at Sheridan College and the Human Resources Professional Association of Ontario (HRPAO). Sarah is also a regular contributor to various newspapers on human resource related issues.


Workshops 2:

1:30-4:30   -   Measuring the Effectiveness and Success of Your Diversity Initiatives
Chris Charron, Vice-President, Aon Consulting

It’s one thing to plan and implement diversity initiatives, but how do you meet the challenge of measuring the effectiveness and success of your program one, two or five years down the road? Evaluating diversity initiatives and quantifying their results have proven to be a real challenge to both public- and private-sector organizations. However, measuring the results is not only critical to the credibility of your initiative and for making the business case, but essential for benchmarking growth and developing future programs that positively impact the company’s bottom line. This interactive workshop provides a quantitative approach on how to measure the results of your diversity initiatives, including:

- Using existing organizational data
- Conducting a diversity survey
- Determining clear and measurable objectives
- Implementing interventions and continuously measuring against baseline objectives
- Making measurement an integral part of the diversity process, not just a check at the end of the initiative
- Integrating evaluations into the ongoing diversity process in order to shape future plans


Chris Charron is a Vice-President in Aon’s Human Capital Strategies team (HCS), a group that provides clients with data-intensive strategic consulting, workforce analytics and organizational modeling tools. His expertise is in quantitative methods for human capital planning and business model design. Specific focus includes solution architecting (e.g., business and technology), complex system modeling techniques for business process analysis and re-design, capacity management and resource optimization, and statistical analysis and data presentation. He has done considerable work with large financial institutions, health care providers, and in the retail and manufacturing sectors. Chris has an M.Sc. in Statistics from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Western Ontario. His research focused on predictive modeling and the representation and quantification of interdependencies and interactions in multi-tiered, multi-component systems.