Highlights

A new workplace census survey was developed for two purposes. Firstly, because the original full workforce census was completed more than ten years ago and data are outdated. The number of people who had identified as having a disability was markedly low when compared to labour force statistics and it was believed that a new census would provide more accurate data.

Secondly, to respond to the addition of a fifth designated group to the employment equity policy at Laurier. The fifth designated group are

people who identify as belonging to a sexual and/or gender minority. The workplace census survey asks the following two new questions:

1. Do you identify yourself as: Male □ Female □ Transgender □

2. For the purposes of employment equity, "persons of a minority sexual orientation" means persons who are gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, twospirited, queer, etc. Based on this definition, do you consider yourself to be a person of a minority sexual orientation? Yes □ No □

The following report includes the fifth designated group as described above, rather than separating transgender and sexual orientation into two categories.

The new workplace census survey was distributed in October 2005 and the following report summarizes these findings. The workplace census resulted in 922 census returns (non-complete); a return rate of 74%. 885 census surveys were completed, resulting in a census complete rate of 71.1%. The equity office will make efforts to increase the return rate to at least 85% for the 2006 report.

Persons with Disabilities:

The percentage of employees who identified as having a disability has markedly increased as projected with this census. The original data indicated that the workforce had only 2.2% of persons with disabilities and this number had remained since 2002. However, our new data tells us that 5.6% of the university population considers themselves to be disabled. In fact, the number of people doubled from 23 in 2004 to 50 in 2005.

The university is no longer severely under-represented. Last year, the gap analysis indicated that we would need to hire 20 persons with a disability in order to equally represent the labour force with the most severe under-representation is in the professional teaching employment category. However, this year, the gap analysis identifies that we are over-represented.

Like last year, this year we were fortunate to hire more persons with disabilities with no turnover. In addition, the Laurier Accessibility Committee has been instrumental in creating change around all facets of accessibility and persons with disabilities.

Aboriginal People:

Continued effort was made towards gaining and maintaining a labour force that reflects the available pool in which searches were being made. 17 hires over the past four years have identified as Aboriginal. 12% of these received promotions in 2005 and there was no turnover. Both of which indicates good retention. The % of the university labour force has increased from 0.5% in 2001 to 2.1% in 2005. Although the university as a whole is presently in good standing in terms of reflecting the overall availability pool for Aboriginal people, the university is under-represented in the professional (non-teaching) occupational group.

Special projects continue to include partnerships with local community organizations. An Aboriginal conference, hosted by the University Employment Equity Advisory Committee entitled "Aboriginal Diversity" took place on in March 2005 and had a positive response.

The establishment of the Shared University Native Development and Navigation Committee (SUNDANCe) has been very successful. This committee has developed an Aboriginal Bursary Fund that is housed at Laurier. This fund is at approximately $50,000. In addition, WLU has taken a joint leadership role with the University of Waterloo to host an annual powwow at St. Paul’s College. Two have taken place to date.

Persons Belonging to a Visible Minority:

Unfortunately, the university fell below the accessibility pool with the new survey. This could partially be due to the low return rate among faculty (60.4%) as faculty has always been over represented and now sit at equal. The university is markedly underrepresented in middle and other managers, professional non-teaching and other sales and services workers.

On a positive note, 26.3% of the faculty hires in 2005 identified as persons belonging to a visible minority, which is a high %. The equity office must make special effort to collect census data from existing employees.

Most persons who identified as belonging to a visible minority identified as being East Asian (40%).

Special projects continue to include partnerships with local community organizations and the annual distribution of a multicultural wall calendar for Managers, Deans and employees responsible for scheduling. These calendars indicate religious and multi-faith dates.

Women:

Of the employees of the university, 35.8% are male; nearly half of the men (45.1%) are employed as faculty, and relatively few are in clerical/administrative positions (7.3%). By contrast, 21% of women working at Laurier fill faculty positions, while 36.7% are employed in positions that are clerical/administrative in nature.

We finally see female professors in the top two quartiles, although the majority (56.5%) of male professors are at the highest quartile.

A minor area of under-representation is found in skilled crafts and trades.

Most of the females hired in 2005 were in the professional teaching occupation (25.4%), clerical occupation (23%) and sales and service (23%). The tracking of staff promotions shows us that 89.5% of the promotions were female. From the female promotions, most (41.2%) were movement from a junior administrative role to a senior administrative role.

Sexual and/or Gender Minority:

As noted in the introduction this is a new fifth designated group. Due to the small number (0.02%) of respondents who identified as being transgender, the report does not identify between the two. And since there are no accessibility data, it is not relevant to add these numbers to each table. However, we are able to report that 25 people or 2.8 % of all respondents to the survey identified as being a member of this fifth group. Out of these 25 people, 92% identified as belonging to a sexual orientation minority.

Most (52%) sexual and/or gender minorities are employed in the professional teaching occupation, which is 4.9% of the overall respondents in this occupation. 33.3% of those who identified are in the professional (non-teaching) occupation, which is 3.9% of the overall respondents in this occupation.

The only external data are the Canadian Community Health Survey, which is the first Statistics Canada survey to include a question on sexual orientation. This survey was conducted between January and December 2003. According to this survey, among Canadians aged 18 to 59, 1.0% reported that they consider themselves to be homosexual and 0.7% considered themselves bisexual. About 1.3% of men considered themselves homosexual, about twice the proportion of 0.7% among women. However, 0.9% of women reported being bisexual, slightly higher than the proportion of 0.6% among men. Statistics Canada reports that there are no comparable Canadian data on sexual orientation and the results are similar to those obtained in the United States using the concept of identity.