Increasing workforce diversity is a priority in Canadian mining. According to research conducted by Mining Industry Human Resources (MiHR) and CIM’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, the industry is expected to need more than 95,000 new hires in the coming decade drawn from a highly competitive labour market predicting just over 61,000 new entrants to the sector. To bridge this gap, the industry will need to compete with other sectors to attract, retain, and promote employees from non-traditional talent pools including women, Indigenous people, skilled new comers, and other under-represented groups.

A review of the literature shows that although there is a strong business case for increasing workforce and leadership diversity3, many employers struggle with how to effectively tap into this talent pool and few have viable action plans for how to fully leverage the experiences of diverse recruits once hired.

We propose that diversity and inclusion are not problems to be solved, but rather are manifestations of current organizational systems and cultures. Business can only unlock the performance potential of a more diverse workforce by intentionally addressing diversity and inclusion as critical pieces of their business and cultural strategies. Similarly, SH&E and operational excellence have both historically been recognized as issues to be most effectively addressed as subsets of organizational systems and cultures.