Abstract
Many types of initiatives have been taken by governments and organizations in order to promote women and minority groups. One that has been largely used for decades is the "equal opportunity" legislation. Equal opportunity is about assuring that every individual is treated on the same basis in the workplace, regarding employment, pay, or promotion, without any kind of discrimination: it is based on equality and justice. Organizations have therefore equality obligations, and have to comply with an anti-discrimination legislation.
A new approach, known as "diversity management", has however been developed. One that, unlike the "equal opportunity" approach, aims to recognize and promote diversity. It is being presented as an alternative to the traditional approach.
Bartz, 1990: "Understanding that there are differences among employees and that these differences, if properly managed, are an asset to work being done more efficiently and effectively, examples of diversity factors are race, culture, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, and work experience."
Extract
[...] In this case, diversity management recognises and accepts their difference and values them as such: it takes into account their different needs, work style, and life style. The organisation will adapt its management. However, within an equal opportunity approach, women would be managed equally with men, without valuing their difference: their needs will not be satisfied, and this of course has an indirect impact on business performance (more or longer maternity leaves for example). This shows that valuing diversity can bring a diverse workforce: a diversity of skills which “encourages value creation”. [...]
[...] Is diversity management a “new approach”, or is it simply a “new label” (Kirton and Greene, 2009)? Nothing new in practice Studies have shown that not many organisations are examplars in diversity management, and that even the ones that claim to be examplars do not have a more diverse workforce than all the other organisations : the supposable progress of this new approach is very little noticed. So diversity management has not met the popularity it was hoping for, since very few organisations implement it. [...]
[...] This table sums up the main differences mentioned above, between the 2 approaches. DM: “NEW APPROACH” OR “NEW LABEL” PRACTICE-WISE? For some, diversity management is seen as a totally new approach, a new alternative to equal opportunities, and as a strategy for progress regarding equality. For others, diversity management is just a new term to enhance the image of the equal opportunity approach, by giving new means to achieve the same ends, with no more progress or success in terms of equality in the workplace. [...]
[...] and BLAKE, S. (1991) Managing cultural diversity: implications for organisational competitiveness EUROPEAN COMMISSION. (2003) The costs and benefits of diversity: a study on methods and indicators to measure the cost-effectiveness of diversity policies in enterprises KANDOLA, R. and FULLERTON, J. [...]
[...] Equal opportunity is about assuring that every individual is treated on the same basis in the workplace, regarding employment, pay, or promotion, without any kind of discrimination: it is based on equality and on justice. Organisations have therefore equality obligations, and have to comply with an anti-discrimination legislation. A new approach, known as “diversity management”, has however been developed. One that, unlike the “equal opportunity” approach, aims to recognise and promote diversity. It is being presented as an alternative to the traditional approach. [...]
