The Bermuda Employers Council (BEC) will be hosting a conference on redefining diversity at the Southampton Princess on April 2, when world authority Dr. R.

Roosevelt Thomas Jr. will be the presenter.

Dr. Thomas advocates that business leaders must both foster and inspire global diversity through their corporations, if they wish to be successful in the 21st century marketplace.

BEC programme and marketing director Claire Mello said, "The conference is prompted by the fact that in the last year or two their have been attempts by various businesses to bring this issue to the fore. There have been individual corporate moves to pay for employees to go on different diversity courses, such as is being offered at the Bermuda College.

"But this is a terrific umbrella programme. Dr. Thomas' message can fit into the fabric of any organisation, whether it already has a diversity programme in place, or non at all.

"He also speaks the language of business. He speaks to the bottom line. The seminar is about three and a half hours long, with a mid-morning coffee break.

We're hoping to have top management and corporate teams register.'' BEC president Garry Madeiros said, "To have Dr. Thomas here in Bermuda to help us understand the diversity management process and to help us master the tools necessary to apply this process to any organisation is certainly an opportunity that should not be missed.

"Diversity issues are sensitive ones. Understanding them and using proven solutions can only benefit the workplace in general.

"Dr. Thomas has developed the "Diversity Paradigm'' which goes to the heart of his diversity management process. Those who attend this seminar will walk away with a much better understanding of the diversity issues we face and they will have a proven methodology to meet the challenges that diversity presents.'' Dr. Thomas is a recognised authority on the issue of diversity. Ms Mello said that he maps out clear strategies that make sense in his book `Redefining Diversity'.

She said, "One of the key issues with Dr. Thomas' approach, is that it is less threatening than other programmes that we know of.'' With a philosophy of inclusion instead of exclusion, he refers to diversity in the book as "any mixture of items characterised by differences and similarities''. During the seminar, Dr. Thomas will focus on what this all means.

He said, "I think it is time to look at diversity in a new light. In this broader version, diversity applies not only to a company's concerns, but to many other critical areas as well.'' He said, "Diversity is not synonymous with differences, but encompasses differences and similarities. Diversity refers to the collective (all-inclusive) mixture of differences and similarities along a given dimension. The component elements in any diversity mixture can vary, and so a discussion on diversity must specify the dimensions in question.'' DISCRIMINATION DIS