News Release – Business leaders will share experiences with and benefits of diversity & inclusion in nationally live-streamed panel discussion

Thursday, October 10th, 2019

October 10, 2019 — For the first time, the Ontario Disability Employment Network (ODEN) is nationally livestreaming a local panel discussion on October 24 between business leaders from the federal, retail, manufacturing and non-profit sectors that will help businesses across Canada discover the benefits of diversity and inclusion.

Responding to moderated questions, the business leaders will share their overall experiences with inclusive hiring. They will talk not only about their successes and how diversity and inclusion has positively changed their organizations, but also about the challenges they worked through to achieve those successes. The panellists are:

• Lino Tesolin, Store Manager, Lowe’s Canada
• Sarah Nishimura, Human Resources Manager with Mac-Weld Machining in Sarnia, ON
• Dennis Chippa, Executive Director of The Gathering Place in North Bay, ON
• Melissa Struthers, Chief of Industry Guidelines, Imported and Manufactured Foods Division at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

The 75-minute panel discussion is one of the sessions on the program at ODEN’s 2019 Rethinking Disability Conference, being held at the Sheraton Parkway Toronto North Hotel in Richmond Hill, ON.

It is being livestreamed as part of ODEN’s 2019 National Disability Employment Awareness month campaign during October.

“We felt it was important to livestream this conference session because there’s still a significant lack of awareness about the business benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace,” says Jeannette Campbell, CEO of ODEN.

“We believe hearing shared success stories from panellists can inspire more businesses, from SMEs to large corporations, to rethink disability in their hiring practices and processes. Businesses that aren’t hiring people who have a disability, are missing out on a pool of highly educated and skilled talent.”

The most recent Statistics Canada survey on disability done in 2017 showed the employment rate of Canadians who have a disability is 59% compared to 80% for those without a disability.

Says Campbell, “This employment gap can be viewed negatively, or seen as an opportunity by businesses to drive more change, experience the benefits of doing so, and move the needle further from the current ‘supply side’ and closer to a demand-for-skilled-talent future in which hiring from the disability talent pool is business as usual.”

The business panel is from 3:15 to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 24, in the Richmond Ballroom.

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