An exploration of advancement opportunities for visible minority professionals, managers and executives has been launched by Catalyst Canada, in association with Ryerson University.

The national survey is being conducted by Catalyst and the Diversity Institute in Management and Technology at Ryerson. The survey, Career Advancement in Corporate Canada: A Focus on Visible Minorities, will take a close look at career development and minorities in publicly-traded and privately-held Canadian corporations and professional services firms.

Gordon Nixon, president and CEO of RBC Financial Group, the project’s lead sponsor, called on top companies to participate in the survey, stressing the significant cost to the country and its citizens if visible minorities cannot participate fully in the workplace.

“Businesses have been dropping the ball when it comes to tapping the potential of visible
minorities in our workforce,” he says. “Diversity can be Canada’s competitive advantage.
So the challenge for corporate Canada—for each of us—is finding out exactly what barriers are preventing visible minorities from advancing in their chosen careers and then addressing them.”

Deborah Gillis, executive director of Catalyst Canada, agrees. “If Canada is going to succeed in the very real and highly competitive global war for talent, we must start with a very clear picture of the fundamental issues faced by visible minorities in the business community,” she says.

Last month the Catalyst/Ryerson research team started confidential e-surveys of employers and employees. Companies representing more than 435,000 employees have signed on to take part in the survey. The study will address issues such as barriers visible minorities face in their careers and practices, and policies organizations use to help minorities excel professionally. IBM and Deloitte & Touche LLP are other participating sponsors.

“It is vital that business leaders, researchers and advisory organizations work together to affect change in organizations' diversity policies and practices,” says Wendy Cukier, associate dean in Ryerson’s faculty of business. “It is imperative to include input from both non-visible minority and visible minority professionals, managers and executives from as many different organizations as possible.”