Preferential and limited hiring

UVic is committed to advancing equity, diversity and inclusion, and to creating the conditions in which everyone feels a sense of belonging: as connected and respected parts of the university community. See UVic’s Equity Action Plan for more details on our goals and actions.

As part of this commitment, policy HR6110, “Preferential or Limited Hiring,” provides for the use of the British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner's (BCOHRC) preferential or limited hiring . The UVic policy and the special programs aim to improve conditions for disadvantaged or under-represented groups.

Groups for preferential and limited hiring

BCOHCR has approved the use of preferential or limited hiring for members of the following groups:

Indigenous Peoples
Black people
People with disabilities/disabled persons
Racialized people or people of colour
Women and gender diverse people

Note: In coordination with UVic’s Better Data Project, we continue to work with BCOHRC to expand these categories and add other groups to this list.

Why should we consider preferential or limited hiring?

Despite efforts to hire fairly, some groups continue to be under-represented among UVic’s workforce. Preferential and limited hiring enables us to actively close these gaps in representation and bring in the qualified people we need to grow.

Preferential or limited hiring can help address our biases and adjust our approach to equitable hiring by bringing qualified people to contribute to UVic’s commitment to ensuring excellence in teaching, creative works and an outstanding student experience.

A successful preferential or limited hiring process should contribute to one or more of the following positive outcomes within the unit/discipline/field of work:

Increase the number of employees from under-represented group(s)
Increase equity in recruitment cycles
Value and leverage special expertise or knowledge of a designated group 
Achieve equity or diversity targets or commitments required by some external funding programs 
Increase a diverse critical mass of perspectives
Increase diverse role models or mentors
Address under-representation in recruitment and hiring

Preferential hiring

Preferential hiring will give a first round of review to all applicants who self-identify as part of the preferred group(s) (see approved groups above). For applicants to qualify, they must disclose they are a member of the preferred group in their application. If an applicant who meets the criteria is not hired, the committee will review all the other applications of those who did not self-identify as part of the preferred group(s).

Limited hiring

Limited hiring means that the committee will only review applicants who self-identify as a member of the listed group(s) for the position (see approved groups above). If a successful candidate is not found, then a new search process will start again.