New survey on workplace diversity at SOCAN provides encouraging results

Story by By Howard Druckman, with files from/avec la participation d’Allison Dell | September 12, 2023

A new Employee Equity Census on diversity in the workplace at SOCAN has yielded some encouraging results, including better-than-average representation for both women and racialized groups, in addition to our already strong bilingual service to our members.

Among the findings:

  • Eighty-six percent of SOCAN employees responded to the census.
  • More than half (58%, or about 6 out of 10 people) of the respondents identify as women, compared to 51% of the Canadian population, according to a 2021 Canadian Census.
  • The proportion of surveyed SOCAN employees that identify as members of a racialized group (32% about 3 out of 10 people) is significantly higher than that among the Canadian population (22%).
  • Of the census respondents, 5.7% in SOCAN’s Membership Department identify as coming from an Indigenous/ancestorial background, compared to 5% in the Canadian population.
  • Seven percent (or about 1 in 14 people) of respondents identify as being lesbian, gay, bisexual/pansexual, queer, two-spirit, or an analogous term, compared to four percent of the Canadian population.
  • Nearly half (48%) of respondents also speak a language other than English or French, including (17 languages, in alphabetical order): Arabic, Armenian, Cantonese, Farsi, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Ukrainian, and Urdu.

SOCAN is very happy to have such strong multilingual representation, and beyond the census results, we discovered that more than half (51%) of the SOCAN member-facing employees in Montréal, Vancouver, and Toronto, who connect with our members every day are bilingual. We’ve always been pleased and proud to provide SOCAN members with the ability to be served in their preferred language, and we’re committed to ensuring that employees continue to meet this expectation.

SOCAN is proud to be home to such diversity in culture and experiences, and we’re continuing to make strides.  Despite strong representation in several areas, we’ve identified those where we need to improve. We look forward to creating opportunities for diverse representation in the leadership talent pipeline and organizational decision making, and ongoing efforts to de-stigmatize disabilities.

Please stay tuned as we monitor our progress and continue to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion at SOCAN.