Although employment equity and its partner, employment diversity, were launched on moral grounds, increasingly these initiatives are sustained for business reasons. Two main principles underpin this.

The first principle to understand is that members of the designated groups are consumers, not just potential employees. For example, the purchasing power of people with disabilities is estimated to be $120 billion. Racial minorities control more than $76 billion in combined purchasing power. Women control 80 percent of the consumer dollars spent in North America.

The second business fundamental is that employees who are diverse represent an organizational resource. This resource facilitates understanding and linkages with these markets by helping various departments understand the lifestyles, consumption needs and wants, purchasing preferences, media usage habits, and brand loyalty of these customers.

For example, Phoenix Geophysics Ltd, in Toronto credits its newest big market (Africa) for its geophysical instruments to its Eritrean-born employee, who speaks five languages. For reasons such as this, one in five businesses has hired an immigrant to help diversify their global client base. Organizations are becoming increasingly international and value the benefits that a diverse workforce can bring to a business. Other organizations such as FedEx, KPMG and Bell Canada have made significant progress in promoting workplace diversity.

Your group's task is to choose a company from the list provided below, research the organization and summarize your findings in form of a report following the content requirements indicated under the Questions below and the assessment standards included in the rubric for the assignment. The organizations are:

Sodexo Canada

Bruce Power LP

Procter & Gamble Inc., Canada

Hatch Ltd., Canada

Questions

Provide a brief profile of the organization you have selected. Consider offering information about the company's products or services and the industry the company operates within. A good company profile would also include information about the company's vision, mission and values.

Identify the jurisdiction that governs the employment affairs of the organization and describe the law that protects human rights at work.

Describe at least three major initiatives that the organization has taken to position itself as a leader in promoting workplace diversity.

Explain the role of human resources professionals in helping organizations promote workplace diversity?

Format

Your assignment should:

Provide clear and well thought out responses to the assignment questions

Integrate material from the text and other sources to support your answers

Be presented in a format acceptable for academic, business and professional purposes - use APA formatting style.

That means the report should be prefaced by a Cover Page that includes all of the following:

Tile of the assignment

Course title along with the course and section codes, e.g. Human Resources Administration, BMGT205 + Section code (e.g., RNA)

Developed by: Group number and members names in the alphabetical order

Submitted to: Name of the Professor

Submitted on: the date on which your group submits the assignment

Use titles and subtitles according to APA style

Be 2.0 spaced (remove space before and after the paragraph in Word's Paragraph Grouping)

Use 12 pt Time Roman or 11 pt Arial font types

Be free from spelling, mechanical and grammatical errors

Humber College requires the use of the American Psychological Association (APA) style. Use APA style in document formatting, quotes, in-text citation and referencing  (Check samples and instructions posted for you in  Mila's Resources - Academic Writing). Use the APA Tip sheet to check the formatting in your paper before submitting an assignment.

The whole project must be completed as a group. Establish your performance expectations with each other right up-front. Be equitable and deal with issues as they come up to avoid unnecessary conflict. Also, be aware that every member of your group is responsible for the whole content. No student is exempt  -  the reason that they were not the person responsible for completing the plagiarized part of the assignment does not hold. If any part of it is plagiarized, all group members are penalized under Humber’s academic regulations.

Submission Instructions

To submit your assignment:

Select a group member who will be responsible to submit the group's assignment

The selected group member needs to:

Save the file on your computer using your group number and the number of the assignment. For example, “Group1_A1.doc” for group 1 assignment 1.

Click Assignments on the side menu then scroll to the name of the assignment.

Click the assignment name to open the Preview Upload Assignment page.

Click the Browse My Computer button on the Dropbox page then navigate to the assignment file in the File Upload window.

Select the assignment file then click the Open button to upload the file.

Add any comments about your assignment in the Comments field.

Click the Submit button to save your assignment for marking.

Note: To avoid piggybacking and provide group members with the opportunity to express their opinion on each individual member's contribution, each member is required to complete the Peer Evaluation Form. The form with the instructions is posted under the Assignments.