Tento projekt je financován z prostředků ESF prostřednictvím Operačního programu Lidské zdroje a zaměstnanost a státního rozpočtu ČR.
Information on the issue of diversity and Diversity management
Document created within KA n.2
Project “Diversity for Disabled”, OP Human Resources for Employment
Project registration number: CZ.1.04/5.1.01/12.00069
Elaborated by the research team led by Tomáš Sokolovský
with support of the project partners
September 2009
Contents
Introduction
1. What is diversity, how become evident, what does it serve for?
2. What is Diversity Management – definition, content, approaches
3. Diversity and disabled persons (DP)
4. Selected good practice examples of intuitive applying diversity towards DP on the free labour market
5. The most common problems in intuitive applying diversity towards DP in the Czech Republic
Conclusion
Introduction
The objective of this material is to make the readers familiar with the issue of diversity and the concept of Diversity management in the context, with an emphasis on improving the possibilities of employing DP on a free labour market.
1. What is diversity, how become evident, what does it serve for?
Diversity is a term meaning variety, versatility, difference, or distinction. Concerning human resources management, it also means individuality of people, which, in fact, follows from their variety and uniqueness.
An important aspect is that the term diversity perceives variety, difference and individuality inapositive way. The term diversity also relates to the idea of inclusion of so-far discriminated people or groups into the majority society. While the term integration (joining parts into one unit) represents mutual functioning preceded by exclusion, inclusion expresses an action of placing inside, into a group, into the majority society, school – without prior segregation (the society does not wonder about the difference, but welcomes versatility). The concepts of the terms integration and inclusion can reveal differences despite being used concurrently.
Inclusion represents, e.g.:
-integrated education, i.e. education of disabled children in a standard network of schools,
-integrated employment, i.e. offer of work positions for the disabled on the labour market,
-independent life,
-providing support for the disabled and their families
-encouraging friendship among the disabled and their colleagues, neighbours, and everyone around them,
-educating the society so that it could understand the differences and accept them
The most general concept understands the term inclusion as incorporating the disabled into the society in a form of their direct involvement in all activities. Inclusion can be understood as fulfilling the sense of integration.
Diversity deals with the topic of individuality and does not perceive a difference as something dividing, but rather joining. The existing variety must be recognised before it is possible to be accepted and used as a chance (opportunity).
2. What is Diversity Management – definition, content, approaches
„Diversity Management is a process intended to create and maintain a positive work environment where the similarities and differences of individuals are valued, so that all can reach their potential and maximize their contributions to an organization's strategic goals and objectives.“
Diversity Management is defined as „strategy of organisation economy which uses and exploits personal variety at the level of the organisation for organisation’s success; the benefit from human resources is then explicitly conditioned by recognition and respect towards difference and individuality of the concerned people”.
Diversity Management differs from “intuitive” attitude to diversity in several views. Primarily in creating conditions for the process of adaptation, which leads to the objective of integration – it requires mutual adaptation of the disabled and non-disabled. The objective of the majority society consists in learning to understand the causes of the differences of the disabled and to understand their special needs resulting from the burden of the disability. Disabled people have their objective in mastering communication, understanding the rules and corresponding behaviour.
Diversity management
- is a change process of the concept of management requiring a number of presumptions, influencing the whole company (organisation) culture, and changing it deliberately,
- is a tool of business management of an organisation which as a summary of measures leads to the state when the organisation accepts the changes, respects and exploits them as a positive benefit to achieve the success of the organisation.
The above-mentioned reveals that this approach does not influence only personal management, but the whole organisation culture as well. It supports applying the adaptation process. It is a reflection of social aspects in the organisation, mutual understanding among people, and conscious co-existence in the society.
Diversity Management cannot work without being embedded in a certain moral and legal climate, whose framework is created by antidiscrimination legislation and community need to detach and morally reward socially responsible companies that implement Diversity management principles into practice.
3. Diversity and disabled persons (DP)
The internet and technical literature present various types of diversity. The most mentioned is gender diversity, then ethnic diversity (in relation to the Romani), age diversity (in relation to demographic development), nation diversity, religious diversity, etc. What has not included so far- diversity towards disabled persons.
Diversity is understood as meeting the principle of equal opportunities for various types of minority groups in the society. A certain difference which implies the membership to a given minority does not mean discrimination, but an opportunity or challenge for a full-featured application in the working environment (i.e. on the labour market) as well as in the civic society. The principles of diversity are often confused with equal opportunities.While equal opportunities have a legislative framework and they can be legally enforced (see the approved antidiscrimination law), the principles of diversity can be met only on the basis of conscious willingness and the antidiscrimination law brings favourable conditions to implement the diversity principles.
Applying the principles of diversity in the society means that the society tries to accept, sustain, support, and further develop development of individuals from various minorities and thus contribute to enriching the majority society by the diversity of the members of such minorities, while the principles of diversity can be applied to all minorities (including DP). Respecting them means that the difference of the members of individual minorities does not imply the possibility to discriminate them (even positively). On the contrary. Mutual influencing and interconnecting of minorities with the majority society creates synergic effects both in accepting the minorities by the majority society and thin their mutual interacting in working environments and civic communities.
Because the most numerous minority in the Czech Republic are disabled people ( 1.015 mil people), the project focuses on the application of diversity principles, or on implementing Diversity management into the practice of Czech companies aiming at improving employment of DP on the labour market in the Czech republic.
The basis of diversity acting and behaviour of the majority society (incl. employers) in relation to employment of DP is knowledge of procedures to implement Diversity management into practice of Czech companies as well as knowledge of the rules of correct communication with this community. Since DP are not a homogenous group, but they are divided into individual types and grades of disability according to the specificity, it is necessary to elaborate separate rules of correct communication for each of the basic and selected groups of DP included in the project (physically disabled, hearing impaired, visually impaired). It means that members of the majority society should acquire a general overview of the characteristics of the given disability, its aetiology both from psychological and special-pedagogical point of view. It is important that they undergo a training of the skills related to general human help with respect to the specificity of the handicap and acquire communication competences needed for work with the given group.
In other words, members of the majority society should know what is the essence of the given disability, its origin, how to behave to the disabled, how to call them, how to offer help, when not to offer help, what not to ask at all, how to touch them and where and when, and on the contrary where and how not to touch them at all, they should have basic information about their culture, humour of the given group of DP, etc. The result of implementing diversity behaviour in practice will be the fact that the majority society will understand that a disability does not necessarily mean inability to succeed in personal and professional life.
Getting familiar with those rules, accepting them as natural, and using them in daily life means that you have mastered the diversity competence towards disabled people. Accordingly, your knowledge, abilities, attitudes and values respect the minority of the disabled as an equal part of the majority society. Most the so-far rooted attitudes and prejudices of the majority society towards DP is a heritage from historical development and a mere awareness about the rules of correct communication does not have to be sufficient to eliminate incorrect attitudes.
In order to acquire the competence towards DP, it is necessary to create communication standards with each group of DP. The following communication standards (recommendedprocedures) will be created:
- rules of correct communication with hearing and visually impaired people, and with physically disabled people,
- model situations illustrating basic mistakes which are made by the majority society when communicating with each of the groups of DP,
- successful life (profession) stories of the disabled from each of the group of DP in a form of motivating documentaries.
To create communication standards is not only possible, but also a necessity because employers still do not despise of any practical aid which would help them orientate in how and according to what criteria to select working positions preferable offered to DP with a concrete disability.
Employers also do not have an aid how to adapt the job description, workplace, working time, etc. according to the requirements of DP. Similarly, employers do not have any usable information on the rules of correct communication with the disabled.
Another barrier impeding implementation of diversity behaviour from the side of employers is the fact that the person who carries out the final selection of DP for the given work position is a personnel staff who is not with the accepted disabled person in everyday touch any further. Thus it is necessary that the communication standards would be presented (taught) to the closest supervisors and colleagues of the given disabled person.
4. Selected good practice examples of intuitive applying diversity towards DP on the free labour market
We have selected the following examples out of the number of companies employing DP:
VÍTKOVICE – ENVI, a.s. – producer of tanks, waste-water treatment plants, biogas plants and steel constructions employees a deaf employees on a position of designer-constructor. His scope of work is a design-construction activity, work on a PC, communication with suppliers and customers, construction realisation. There are no significant problems in communication within the team. The contact is mainly in written and communication with maximum use of clearness. External communication is also mostly written. Certain complications that arise at the communication level are, according to the company opinion, highly compensated by proficiency of the worker and his high work attitude. There were no extra costs to employ this disabled person.
DOPRAVNÍ PODNIK OSTRAVA, a. s.,employs 3 workers with hearing impairment. One of them works as a foreman leading a group of 14 hearing workers in the section of general repairs of trams. As claimed by both sides (the deaf foreman and his subordinates), there are no work or communication obstacles between them. Despite the fact that it concerns a deaf worker, communication is mainly in spoken with lip-reading, in the case of more complex issues in written. Everyone agrees that a problem-free communication is only a matter of habit. All DP in this company work in full workload with only one restriction – they cannot perform work on roofs of the trams due to safety reasons. They have no acoustic warning signalling that there is a crane crossing above them. Still they are full-value workers. There were no extra costs to employ these disabled people in comparison with employing non-disabled workers.
ŘEMPO HOLOUBEK PARTNER, s. r. o.,has 16 people with various disabilities. This enables the company to offer its customers a possibility to apply the alternative performance according to law 435/2004 Coll., amended by execution ordinance 518/2004, thus acquiring a competitive advantage. The DP work in various professions, e.g. hearing impaired work in company administration. Their scope of work contains managing stocks of the retail shop and canteen (purchasing, sales, keeping stock records, inventory), managing received and sent mail and otheradministrative work on a PC (processing tables, internet, e-mailing with customers, etc.). The costs to adapt the work conditions for the DP were minimal – most measures were taken at the level of organisation and communication, training was partially funded by a grant of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, work results of the DP are very good.
MAGNETON, a. s., Kroměřížemploys 6 disabled people as machine-tool worker and electrician. Problems and financial costs necessary for adaptation of the workplace for the DP are low in comparison with their work results.
Similar experience is reported from other companies, e.g. KOSTAL CR, spol. s r.o., dealing with development, production, and mounting electric and electromechanic components for automotive industry, the company employs 7 disabled workers; DRIESEN AEROSPACE CZ, s.r.o., a production company with foreign participation producing interiors for aerospace industry has 4 DP.
5. The most common problems in intuitive applying diversity towards DP in the CzechRepublic
Unfamiliarity with the practical meaning of the term “diversity”
Majority of Czech people understand the term diversity as tolerance of differences. Creating a social climate where nobody takes umbrage about somebody else’s values, culture, social conventions. This is a narrow view of the issue. Diversity goes in its principle much further. In fact, it does not work with the term tolerance, but with the term equality – mutual interaction – exploitation of mutual enrichment, not only at the cultural and social level, but economic as well. Thus it transfers from the position of communal and social obligation enforced by a certain pressure from other developed states to the area of a spontaneous activity bringing concrete results.
Difficult understanding of potential benefits of employing DP
Disabled people bring another way of thinking to a company. Generally, DP are much sensitive, they can judge the situation and find a solution much better. Those are qualities generated by everyday “fight for survival”. If the employer can make use of such qualities, a disabled person becomes a very valuable worker.
If we involve DP into developing company products, they are able to add a new dimension to the products which stems from that their needs for using the product are sometimes different from those of the majority society. According to statistics, there are more than 1 million DP in the CzechRepublic. This is definitely an interesting customer group, whose favour is worth attracting. And who can asses its needs better than its representatives themselves?
As shown from the examples of the companies employing DP, they are mostly workers very careful, loyal, they appreciate their job and the confidence that the company entrusted them. Their work moral is very good. For example, a deaf person talks with the colleagues considerably less about issues not-related with the work, does not listen to the radio, is not disturbed by outer noises. This person primarily does his/her work. We could give similar examples about other types of disabilities.
If we count in the legally set obligation to employ a certain percentage of the disabled, failing to which is financially penalised, it is obvious that funds invested into adaptation of the working conditions to DP and correct application of the principles of diversity, i.e. optimal exploitation of the differences of certain employees, have real economic return.
Fear of deterioration of internal communication when implementing diversity
This fear does not have any real basis. If the arrival of a worker – DP into the company is well prepared, problems with internal communication are minimal. If the company trains their employees at least in the basic facts of correct communication with DP, the communication barrier is removed. There is a wide range of myths about DP. For example, when communicating with the deaf, it is necessary to shout, or a deaf reacting differently from the habit of the majority society is suffers from mental retardation. Nothing of that is true. In fact, deaf people have their way to communicate with the surrounding world and they are very adaptable to a particular environment, thus at a workplace where the deaf communicates with the same stable range of colleagues on topics defined by their duties and needs, i.e. topics close to both sides and terminologically known, there are no problems. They communicate using a PC, lip-reading, elements of the sign language, or in spoken.
Similar situation can be found with visually impaired people. Nowadays, there is a number of efficient compensation aids. Electronic magnifying lenses, reading devices using voice synthesis, etc.
Fear of communication problems can be effectively minimised by good preparation for employing DP. For example by trainings on the rules of correct communication, incl. familiarising the employees with certain expressing differences and difference within social conventions.
Fears of high costs for adapting the workplace enabling to employ DP
As examples given in chapter 4 of this article show, experience of the majority of other companies employing DP reveals that the costs elated to training DP are comparable to those with training non-disabled workers. Possible extra costs can be partially or fully covered by contribution provided by work centres.
Conclusion
Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam (EU1997)explicitly bans discrimination in the member countries of the EU in relation to: