Employment equity
Employment equity: what is it?
Employment equity is about changing workplace culture and hiring practices so that historically disadvantaged groups get jobs they are qualified to do and can fully contribute to the workplace.
Hiring and promotion should be free from biases, favouritism, and prejudice.
All workers should be recognized for their skills and abilities.
But barriers and biases - intentional or not - are very much a factor when it comes to hiring and promotion in many workplaces.
Employment equity aims to remove longstanding barriers to career advancement for historically disadvantaged groups – Aboriginal peoples, women, people with disabilities, and racialized people.
How does employment equity work?
Organizations examine their workforce to see if it reflects the diversity in our society.
If the workforce's make up does not reflect the external labour market the organization takes steps to increase representation of the four designated groups.
They must then prepare an employment equity plan which includes short term and long term goals for workplace representation from each designated group.
The plan also lists ways to achieve them which may include:
- targeted recruitment,
- ensuring hiring boards are diverse and trained to recognize potential biases they may have,
- outreach and job advertising in specific communities, and
- ensuring that competition processes are inclusive and will accommodate the needs of potential hires (for examples, those with disabilities)
Organizations also must examine their employment systems, policies, and practices to ensure that there are no barriers to the employment, hiring, promotion, etc, of designated group members.
Employment equity is about ensuring opportunities for all.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and human rights laws recognize employment equity measures are necessary to create a more just society.
PSAC promotes employment equity in the workplaces we represent and in our own workforce.
The federal Employment Equity Act requires employers with 100 or more employees - and companies that have large contracts with the federal government - to implement employment equity in consultation with the unions in their workplaces.
PSAC is an active participant in employment equity in the federal public service, other federally regulated workplaces and all workplaces where we represent workers.
Date Modified : 2010/05/19
