Culture: diversity and inclusion

Via Gurteen I found 3 conversations about diversity and inclusion talking about the UK and France. The audio quality was bad, but there is a transcript as well. Interestingly, there are questions that go with the interview (see the blue slide here).

In one of the three conversations, Hamid Senni interviews Daniele Joly, Director of the Centre of Research in Ethnic Relations, who grew up in Africa. She states that a society has to look into diversity issues because of the need to create a well-balanced society.

She talks about the business case for diversity; you should not think about diversity as part of charity, but for equal opportunities and enhancing business capacity. On top of that, there is the legislation in Europe.

On direct and indirect benefits of a diversity policy:
* The babyboom generation will retire, there will be workforce scarcity and we need migrants (Europe is now not welcoming migrants like the US/Canada)
* You develop more harmonious relations with open attitudes leading to better productivity
* It appeals to the clientele
* It introduces novel ideas

A roadmap could be to do an audit, develop a public policy, implement it and monitor this. The other interview on the UK touches very similar issues.

I first thought that diversity is approached from the positive side, rather than as a problem. But on second thoughts, it still sounds quite defensive, to fill the labour gap when babyboomer retire? Also, unfortunately she does not go deeply into what organisations should do to deal with diversity constructively. Because it sets organisations up for confict situations too. I read the book the inclusion breakthrough by Miller and Katz which deals with that in much more detail. (I read it before I blogged, maybe I should still blog it)