Welcome to the website of the National Diversity, Employment Equity & Transformation Summit, hosted on the 4th -5th December 2007 at the Gallagher Estate, Midrand.

A diverse workforce is one of your greatest assets, yet precious few companies have learned to leverage its power.  Beyond recruitment and hiring, many businesses fall short in proactively and creatively managing, retaining and motivation their diverse workforce. It takes courage to embark on change initiatives that lead toward inclusive organisations. Leaders have to balance the organisation's strategic goals with the needs of members across the organization. The summit explores themes critically important in creating inclusive organisations.

The focus of the summit is on enhancing the critical skills diversity practitioners, business leaders, line managers, HR personnel and diversity champions must possess to flourish in this dynamic environment. The goal is to enable them to be more effective in their roles and efforts to lead successful transformation initiatives.

Diversity has gained executive level attention and is critically embedded in the overall success of the organisation. Business leaders will need to increase their understanding of diversity while enhancing their cultural competence and ability to manage and leverage diverse teams. Diversity practitioners and business leaders alike must include the topic of diversity in strategic, high-level business conversations.

The Summit plays an integral role in creating and sustaining inclusive work environments that mirror the demographic makeup of this country, and showcase a collection of the most vital tools, strategies, and best-practices available in the fields of diversity, employment equity  and transformation. The aim of the Summit is to take organisational diversity and transformation to new levels by challenging presenters and participants to be visionary in their thoughts and actions.

The summit assists diversity leaders to better understand the challenges and opportunities in moving their diversity program plans forward. It creates a forum for sharing and formulating integrated diversity plans that go beyond numbers and representation to link marketplace, workplace and community diversity objectives to strategic goals. It explores the value of diversity in building, retaining and leveraging the diverse workforce organisations’ need to be competitive in this country, as well as the global market.

The summit provides delegates with many networking opportunities, thought-provoking sessions, interactive learning formats and actionable tools that can be applied in organizations. In addition to keynote presentations and concurrent sessions, delegates will have the opportunity to participate in discussion forums that will explore problem areas, best practices and current trends. The speakers include some of the leading thinkers, researchers and practitioners in the field of Diversity, Employment Equity and Transformation.

Value adds of the Summit:

• Included in the conference pack delegates receive a copy of the Special Summit Edition: Journal of Diversity, Employment Equity and Transformation. The edition will include the presentations as well as the various editorials by leaders. 

• Post-Summit Workshops. The in-depth and hands-on workshops will develop the skills necessary for your day-to-day diversity work. Our expert presenters will help you to focus intensively on a specific skill and build an action plan to bring back to the office.  See the list of post-conference workshops.

• Video Inserts of various top South African Gurus

• Advanced Practitioner Think Tank. The Advanced Practitioners' Think Tank was created to meet the needs of senior practitioners who have primary responsibility for leading diversity and transformation strategies within their organizations. This highly interactive forum allows experienced diversity leaders to collectively explore some of the complex challenges and strategies for advancing diversity work.

Who Should Attend

• Directors, Managers and Business Unit Leaders

• Diversity Practitioners

• Employment Equity and Human Resource Practitioners

• Change  and transformation Agents

• Workplace trainers Academics and educational administrators in the fields of employment equity, diversity management and transformation

• Public administrators and policy-makers.

 7 Great Reasons to Attend

• Learn from dynamic presentation by diversity, employment equity and transformation experts

• Discover state-of-the-art, innovative diversity strategies

• Best practice sharing and Benchmarking

• Enhance strategies to successfully compete and operate in the marketplace

• Networking and participating in round table discussions with peers

• Develop leadership skills to enhance your diversity management capability

• The Advanced Practitioners Think Tank offers a high-level discussion forum for advanced diversity, EE and transformation practitioners