Transcending Barriers:
Diversity Management and
Innovative Employer Strategies
- By Dr Alan Bruce
A Paper Delivered to the ‘Access and Diversity: A New Vision of Work’
Conference hosted by the Equal at Work Project and the Dublin Employment
Pact on September 25, 2003 at Croke Park Conference Centre.
THE CONTEXT OF DIVERSITY
For contemporary industry, the issue of diversity has become a pressing one for a number of
connected reasons. In this, industry is partly reflecting the demographic, social and cultural
changes of its wider surrounding politico-economic environment. It is also reflecting the
powerful challenges and struggles in the organization, structure and control of work and
labour conditions which have existed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
The current social context of diversity is concerned with the composition of the workforce in
terms of multiple elements of identity: race, religion, gender, language or nationality for
example. The nature of the modern labour market displays both increased complexity and
diversity emerging from powerful social forces and population movements. These are linked
to forced migration, regional impoverishment and the changing nature of work itself due to
technological advances and improvement.
It is also concerned with the implications of
legislation and human relations practice. These touch on issues regarding diversity in regard
to rights, ethical practice, conflict resolution and promotion of equal opportunities.
The labour market therefore manifests the changes in work practice that have been
conditioned, on the one hand, by the process of globalization and, on the other, by the
enactment of equality-based legislation in various jurisdictions.
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Equal status for all (and particularly for those who have been traditionally excluded by reason
of prejudice or discrimination) poses a set of challenges for social institutions apart from the
labour market. This has become particularly noticeable in the European context where there is
an extensive tradition of labour-related legislation in the various Member States. The added
impact of European Union rules produces a strong emphasis on common standards both to
affirm rights and to regulate workforce conditions.
Managing Diversity is today a key issue in management and personnel practice. It emerges
from profound socio-economic labour market changes in the Western or developed world
over the past forty years. From the time of the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) in the
United States, American industry began to experience the impact of a changing workforce –
and a workforce with enshrined rights regarding anti-discrimination. These workers came
from traditionally excluded sectors as well as from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Subsequently, the entry of significant numbers of women workers and employees with
disabilities brought about additional challenges to work practices and structures. In the US
(and, by extension, European) context, these had frequently been based on a static, white,
male image of the ‘traditional’ labour force.
Both European and American concepts of diversity management in labour market contexts
have a number of shared concerns. These include:

Best practice in the human resources development function

Maximization of the potential of new and existing labour market participant categories

Reduction of social and economic cost in dealing with diverse labour groups

Conformity to national or transnational legislative requirements

Tapping into the creativity latent in diverse and non-standard work groups and
perspectives

Innovative responses to inclusion, design and differentiated market sectors.
In European terms, management of diversity has been centrally linked to the enforcement of
principles of equality among citizens and the prohibition of discrimination on a wide range of
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specified grounds. While legislation varies significantly between all Member States, in most
there remains a gap between the legal prohibition of discrimination and the actual outcomes
for traditionally disadvantaged groups. In all countries, legal proof of discrimination tends to
be very difficult.
The dramatic changes in employment and economic performance in recent years need to be
related to profound changes in social structure and demographic composition. A significant
danger has been identified in the fact that European rights are in fact increasingly restricted.
They are sometimes seen to be available only to European citizens and not to the millions of
external workers, refugees and asylum seekers who have arrived in Europe in ever greater
numbers. The extension of notions of equality of rights of participation, citizenship and access
beyond gender to all citizens (and indeed non-citizens) is now a fundamental question of
European social policy. It also goes to the core of what is expected in practical applied
programmes for the management of diversity at micro-economic and local level as well as at
that of national (or supra-national) levels.
Managing diversity in the context of fundamental social rights is an area of profound
importance for both employers and policy makers. The Supiot Report identified key areas
where progress needed to be made in the context of European employment policy. These are:
1. Reinforcement of the right of free movement of labour and extension of that right to nonUnion nationals legally resident in the European Union. Fundamental rights should not be
based on nationality but on legally performed work.
2. Resolution of the issue of trade union rights at Union level.
3. The need for a European framework for information and consultation for companies
operating in the single market.
4. Recognition of the role of non-governmental organizations in the formulation and
implementation of Union social policy.
5. Pursuit of action at Union level to combat discrimination, especially on the grounds of
race.
6. Implementation of the fundamental principle of adaptation of work to the needs of the
worker, particularly in the context of working time.
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Managing diversity can be seen, at a minimum, as a tool to enable employers to adapt to
challenges posed by differentiated workforces where expectations and levels of
communication may even be sources of potential conflict. In a wider context, managing
diversity may be seen as a powerful resource to benefit from the change processes and to tap
into levels of creativity and potential produced by radical departures from past certainties.
CHANGE, GLOBALIZATION AND THE FOUR GREEN FIELDS
Discussion of change has become almost a cliché in the Irish context. The transformation of a
largely rural and agrarian society, with a self-perception of racial and cultural homogeneity,
into a complex and multi-ethnic post-modern melting pot at the cutting edge of technological
advance, is one of the great myths of contemporary Irish public discourse. Like all myths it
does encompass some surface truths while explaining little about the underlying reasons of
historical fact and economic realities.
The change process in Irish society is similar to that experienced by all societies undergoing
the dual processes of industrialization and integration into a world market economy. That this
process had commenced several centuries previously with the impact of colonization,
expropriation and plantation does add originality to the Irish experience - especially in a
specifically European context.
It means also that Irish social diversity is not a new phenomenon. The fracture lines of Irish
identity are both complex and laced with the potential for significant violence. From the
standpoint of the twilight days of the Celtic Tiger, it may be difficult to envisage that the
norm for Irish society for many centuries has been one of violence and contentious
fragmentation with little if any shared sense of unity or common purpose. The sense of a
settled, cohesive society moving through the standard European phases of state formation,
balanced economic growth and enhanced civic enlightenment has not been Ireland’s lot.
The traumatic course of Irish history has meant that change has usually been accompanied by
deep resistance or panicked sectoral clutching to often meager economic gains. While the
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specificity of Irish history does not negate broad economic trends and developments, it lends
a unique perspective to legacies of difference and disadvantage in the process of economic
transformation.
In attempting to understand the present and future contours of Irish diversity it is essential to
appreciate that Ireland has been at once more complex and less cohesive than normally
assumed by its economic policy commentators.
The depiction of Ireland as a homogeneous and uniform cultural polity is a recent one. It has
its origins in the settlements achieved by the Land League, the pervasive cultural influence of
the Roman Catholic Church in the post-Famine era and the inert conservatism of the two
States which emerged from the Partition settlement. The trauma of the last thirty years has
been as much linked to social change, urbanization, inequality and cultural identities as it has
to movements for or against political unification.
For our purposes, the key point is that Ireland has never been a uniform or agreed sociopolitical entity. The nature of Irish society has been a fragmented, divided and polyglot one.
In its very fibres, Ireland has been a laboratory of diversity. Its cultural mosaic has
encompassed layers of identity not to be expected in a remote offshore island. Its
discontinuities and divisions have however been the source of extraordinary creativity and
interplay, where no one culture (Celtic, Gaelic, Danish, Norman French, English, Scottish,
Flemish, Jewish or Huguenot) has had a monopoly of Irishness.
This diverse Ireland is presently grappling with the revelations of its seedy underside and the
extensive networks of denial and cover-up in its educational, social, institutional and
commercial spheres. The uncertainty and shock stemming from disclosures about the litanies
of abuse have had as much to do with locating responsibility as loss of faith in the traditional
self-image of a caring and supportive society.
A clear sense of these past realities is essential to grasp the contours of the present and the
possibilities for inclusion in the future. In its economic aspect, Irish society remained on the
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periphery of economic development for many decades after formal independence in the
South. Such industry as existed functioned behind protectionist walls while the haemorrhage
of emigration exported millions of citizens who could find neither jobs nor status in their own
country.
The reversal of these trends is relatively recent. The memory of their impact is however
potent. Economic development, the creation of jobs and the reversal of emigration have been
due to a variety of factors. The positive roles played by enhanced education, social
partnership, improved accountability and community development need to be acknowledged.
On the other hand the fact that all these improvements were also largely reactions to external
stimuli and pressures pinpoints the often subsidiary and derivative nature of Irish social and
economic policy formulation.
Ireland exists now, both de jure and de facto, as part of a wider world. Its trends and
characteristics mirror those of other societies. Its challenges and opportunities echo those of
other nations undergoing similar processes of social transformation. As it once exported its
own people, Irish society now receives those exported from the killing fields and slums of the
underdeveloped world.
As a seeming host of marginalized groups and subsets of society emerge from the shadows to
claim their place as of right at the table of participatory citizenship, it is understandable that
the custodians of the traditional myths may feel uneasy. They may well yearn for the days
when those who knew their place worked and those who didn’t left. They may well shake
their heads in puzzlement at the exotic and different groups who claim not only rights but also
respect and no longer meekly accept in silent endurance.
The traditional depiction of Irish backwardness and underdevelopment has a strong parallel
with contemporary depictions of social exclusion. Under every category employed, Irish
society could be viewed in toto as a metaphor for under-privilege and disadvantage. The
structural inequalities were built into a fragmented and discriminatory polity. As the decades
of disadvantage unfolded in the twentieth century, Ireland seemed unable to emerge from the
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social, economic and cultural constraints that dragged it down. In such an environment
Raymond Crotty, the chronicler of agricultural underdevelopment and inequality, could
observe with a wry bitterness that Ireland had become simply unable to support as many
people as cattle.
Decades of deprivation, emigration, political violence, sexism, unemployment and
disadvantage are not overturned by a few years of prosperity. More importantly, the attitudes,
practices, rationalizations and understandings of those decades persist, and persist profoundly,
in the social and economic practices of modern Irish society. The specific nature of Irish
social dislocation intersects and is organically connected to more widely recognized aspects
of the process termed globalization. The globalizing process is pervasive. It means that no
discussion on policy or strategy can be undertaken without a parallel international
understanding and analysis.
The emergence of a focus on rights for minorities, the transformation of the demographic
composition of the population and the sea-change around the role of women have, together
with the sustained war in the north east, been the key features of Irish social development
over the past three decades.
It is against this social backdrop that we need to look anew at work and economic activity.
Employment is not divorced from its social context. Employment is not simply about job
creation and maintenance. It is about the transformative power of work through the
production and sale of goods and the distribution of the profits gained. It can also be about the
maintenance – or change – of social relationships based on tolerance and equal acceptance.
WORK AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
Extensive cutbacks in the number of jobs in the industrially advanced developed countries,
the changing nature of work and the stagnation of growth have provided the starting point for
a number of sociological theories about the end of work. In 1995, Jeremy Rifkind could state
with authority that we were on the road to “a near workless economy”. Traditional workers
and industry are not, however, in decline. These elements are not disappearing from the
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world. Rather what is happening is that we are witnessing the world division of labour
undergoing a set of dramatic changes. Traditional industrial production is more and more
being transferred from the countries of the developed centre to those of the underdeveloped
periphery.
The development of global corporations, the systematic pillage of natural resources and the
existence of a peripheral minimally paid workforce producing a vast array of cheap goods for
export underpin the current world economic order.
As in the case of Irish diversity, globalization is not new. It is the latest stage of a process that
began with the age of explorations and the “opening” of the wider world to the impact of
European expansion, commerce and colonization. The global supremacy of a market form of
production and distribution means that we cannot view Irish economic development – or
equality strategies – in isolation from wider international trends and issues. The ascendancy
of Western countries is based not on any inherent superiority but on the material power of its
science and technology that, like the market economy, are the products of its civilization.
These unresolved conflicts of economics, history and societies are the background to a deeper
understanding of social inequality than can be assumed from more traditional versions of
social change, divorced from context and history. With conflict over resources and identity as
a starting point rather than result, we can develop a more accurate picture of the difficulties
(as well as the challenges and opportunities) in addressing barriers to economic participation.
This analysis helps us to locate issues around exclusion and inclusion in the proper
framework of ownership and control - and access to the fruits of ownership and control.
In a globalized environment work is no longer a uniform progression of production and
consumption but also an unfolding of a profound restructuring of all social, cultural, personal
and ethnic relationships and understandings.
The profound upheavals at European and global levels of the past century have often been
intimately connected with identity and/or the assertion of identity against assumed foes. The
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very project of the European Union itself has at its core an assumption of the need for Europe
to assert its place in the world, although against what (or for what) remains unstated. The
reality is that European identity is as fragmented as Irish identity and with as much baggage
for its own citizens as for those countless millions who have been its colonial subjects.
The great risk to current levels of economic activity is that, failing an accurate analysis of
how prosperity emerged and its contours of in-built inegalitarianism, no mechanism of
understanding and redress will be present if circumstances change for the worse. Overreliance on one particular sector (e.g. information technology) or facile economic analysis
(trickle down wealth) can produce one-dimensional understanding.
The fact remains however that modern Irish society is displaying worrying levels of uneven
development and disturbing levels of documented inequality, poverty and discrimination.
Environmental degradation, homelessness, two-tier social service provision, absence of
planning, asset stripping of public services and blind reliance on ever-increasing consumption
patterns are but some of the indices of current social malaise.
At another level, has been the sustained attack – powerfully aided by a near monopolistic
media system – on concepts such as social justice, human rights, public morality and
equitable distribution (or even re-distribution) of wealth. One of the more distressing aspects
of this intellectual surrender in the face of a rampant enterprise mindset has been the inability
to even conceptualize in terms that are not derivative, dated and shallow. The need for a
response that is connected to the real experiences of existing communities and their needs is
essential. The need for employment opportunities and jobs that are innovative and dynamic is
very different from a perspective that assumes Irish society is a stereotypical transition from
rural to urban, peasant to modern, backward to progressive.
Irish society is open, adaptable and flexible. It has benefited profoundly (thanks to language
and affinity) from its connection to the lessons of the great Civil Rights movements in the
United States. It has, through its diaspora, been at the centre of a learning process where it can
observe and understand the real nature of the global economy in all its manifestations. In a
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fundamental way, its collective experience enables Irish society to understand the voices of
impoverishment and injustice in the killing zones that now occupy most of this planet. In no
small way, Irish society also finds itself at a centre of debates on the value of work in the
context of the future direction of the most important international organization of which it is a
member, the European Union.
Membership of the European Union has had a profound effect on the sensibility and structure
of Irish social institutions. This has had both negative and positive aspects. On the one hand,
there has been the culture of subsidy and the mindset of unilinear economic expansion. Under
the guise of the need for standardization and market harmonization, significant areas of
autonomy and local decision-making have been impaired. The sustained inability of the
institutions of the European Union to overcome their self-declared ‘democratic deficit’ has
been a major failing. The lack of transparency and accountability (shared by many national
governments) has placed a new emphasis on societies to re-assert the meaning and importance
of a dynamic democracy as a corollary to participative equality.
On the other hand, the European Union’s emphasis on a social market model and partnership
finds a ready resonance in the Irish body politic. In fact, it can be cogently argued that it is
this aspect, with its intended redistribution of resources from richer to poorer areas of the
Union, which has been a main contributor to Ireland’s recent prosperity. At another level, the
European Union, through its specific funds and Community Initiative programmes, has
allowed the creation of community to community linkages across the Union where much
learning and exchange has occurred. This influx of money, ideas and standards has propelled
Irish society to a point where it has had to address the educational, training and social needs
of its citizens as of right in their country of birth for the first time since the establishment of
the State.
EMPLOYERS AND EQUALITY
Equality, like economic activity, contains a high degree of contradiction. The process of
attaining equality of opportunity is fraught with dissension as to definition and extent, method
and intent. In few sectors are the issues as graphically highlighted as in access to jobs and
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meaningful employment. Many employers, particularly in the Irish context, are witnessing the
full impact of globalization in the context of:

Rising prices

Increased competition

Legislative complexity

Sluggish international economic activity.
In such a context the ability to cut costs, maintain increased production rates and maintain
competitiveness may tend to dominate all commercial thinking and forward planning. When
the imperative is to survive from day to day, most companies can find issues around equality
policy, planning, inclusion and innovation esoteric or irrelevant.
The impact of social and economic change in Ireland means that a diverse workforce is
already present and likely to increase in its diversity in the years ahead. The existence of
powerful and extensive equality legislation means that, at the very least, employers are aware
of the need to comply with legislation and to avoid penalties for non-compliance.
Pro-active policies however can make a real difference in underlying the positive benefits
from inclusion of new or marginalized communities in the traditional workforce. The very
fact of responding to the diversity in the wider social environment can improve productivity,
enhance labour relations and tap into levels of human potential hitherto untouched.
The role of the employer needs to go beyond traditional Fordist conceptions of the hiring and
firing of labour and supervision of productive tasks. It must become the marshalling of
economic and productive activity to meaningful social ends. In this sense employment can
become participation in profitable activities – profitable to all social stakeholders and not just
shareholders. Work itself in this sense goes beyond the mere provision of jobs to the creation
of value – in both economic and social senses.
More progressive employers also recognize the crucial role the enterprise can play in
providing leadership and learning. In highly competitive commercial environments,
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employers who promote learning and creativity have a greater chance to anticipate market
changes, be flexible and respond to new opportunities. It is difficult to break from traditional
patterns. But employers who are failing to use the creativity of the human capital on their
doorstep will be likely to experience little growth in times of change.
Equality, in the employment context, is most effectively understood when positively linked
with:

Learning

Creativity

Problem resolution

Change management

Improved communications.
Employers who have seen equality of opportunity as more than compliance with legal norms
have been able to benefit from the extraordinary potential of new and diverse elements in
their workforces. This has meant that the voyage of discovery around equality and diversity
issues has become centrally linked to the strategic learning needs of the employers concerned.
The learning of the organization is tied directly to the learning needs of each and every
employee. That means a pro-active stance on the recruitment and retention of non-traditional
workers and the removal of barriers to access.
Employers who see only cost implications in the recruitment of non-traditional workers or
application of equality of opportunity mechanisms are, at the least, missing out on the
extraordinary potential of thinking and acting in different ways. It is commonplace to state the
modern enterprise is founded on a number of key issues which include the need for:

Flexibility

Cost-effectiveness

Creativity

Adaptability
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Inclusion of non-traditional workers and accommodating their needs is a sure way to achieve
all those elements. Practices and structures which respond to human difference are more
likely to respond to changing markets and customer bases. Sensitive and flexible working
arrangements are more likely to produce co-operation and flexibility in productive practices.
Dialogue and communication are more likely to produce trust and creative inputs.
In the process undertaken in Waterford Crystal, for example, involvement in equality projects
and diversity practices was seen to add directly to the capacity of the workforce at all levels to
adapt to change. The nature of these initiatives was judged to allow for in-depth learning
around:

Identification of change

Design

Delivery

Evaluation

Motivation

Barriers to access

Learning capability

Communications

Discovery and activation of under-utilized potential.
A heartening feature has been the discovery and recognition of the tremendous potential
among this group of (marginalized) employees. Their performance in many instances
surpassed the targets laid down in project objectives. Their committed and pioneering spirit
can be activated and energized company wide if learning from the programs is facilitated and
put into practice over an extended time.
(Learning with Europe, 2001, p. 2)
Companies like Waterford Crystal have identified an overriding requirement for Government,
in collaboration with the social partners, to mobilize the resources available to them in
employment strategies to provide a menu of learning opportunities linked to equal
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opportunities. This integration of potential with company objectives can therefore produce
mutual learning which can:

Ensure continued competitiveness

Maintain employment levels

Increase employment opportunities

Fund imaginative social programs

Establish an equality of opportunity platform which will become the basis of a truly
inclusive society.
Traditional responses to managing diversity and the inclusion of differing social groups have
encompassed two aspects. On the negative side such an approach is seen as:

Combating prejudice

Reducing conflict

Overcoming poor communications

Containing time and cost implications

Lacking relevance.
On the positive side such an approach can:

Improve employee relations

Locate new sources of talent

Improve communications

Develop flexible working

Achieve legislative compliance

Improve corporate image

Develop better access to new export markets.
If equality is located first and foremost in a context of learning, it is enhanced greatly in the
context of innovation.
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Innovation is literally doing what has not been done before. It calls for considerable creativity
for employers to develop innovative practices. It is often a veritable leap into the unknown.
Yet all the evidence is that the companies who achieve success do so because they are doing
something new - or something old in a new way. Innovation is not about market gimmicks. It
is about products and skills that emerge from new ways of organization and human creativity.
Innovation is based upon learning from the past as much as about anticipating the needs of the
future.
To this end all resources need to be marshalled. The opportunities therefore of including those
traditionally excluded by reason of gender, disability, race or language become not problems
to be solved but resources to be deployed in advancing the creative process.
The diversity of modern Irish society offers a rich pool of talent and different thinking which
is an asset to any forward thinking employer. In a context of change few things are certain.
One certainty is that traditional ways of designing, producing and selling will not work in the
longer term. Traditional recruitment, training and promotion practices will fail to maintain
jobs if the only perspective is competition with low wage economies or an undignified
scramble to attract inward job creation at any price.
Irish enterprises need to become both more flexible and more responsive to their external
environments. The diversity on our doorstep offers not just the opportunity to meet social and
legal obligations. It offers an opportunity to maximize and sustain profitable enterprise that
benefits the entire community.
The learning organization is by its nature innovative. It also values best practice and the
quality that focuses not merely on product characteristics but on the process that produces
both consistently excellent goods and a motivated workforce.
TARGETING BARRIERS
The barriers to equality in our society are plentiful. The barriers stem from prejudice and
ignorance. They are rooted deeply in our history and in our arrogance that somehow, some
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way we are superior. The barriers leech into our souls, into our very ways of forming the
questions about the environment in which we live. The barriers stretch from the uninformed
attitudes towards those that act in other ways to the sheer violence against those that differ.
The barriers are those of Peace Lines and Berlin Walls and Palestinian fences right up to the
unthinking crucifix on a hospital wall.
At work, there is a long and ignoble history of employer complicity in Ireland with the
attitudes of discrimination that kept Catholics out of shipyards and Protestants out of libraries.
A society that made its married female workers retire and its disabled workers languish in
unending vocational training courses has much to learn about the need for work to create
value for all in society - not just wealth for its ruling elites.
The barriers may be artificial but they are real. They are real for those that experience their
blockages. They are also real for those that fail to benefit from the creative possibilities that
stretch before them.
Ultimately employment is about the individual being able to produce and to be assessed and
valued for what she contributes not what her label may be. The removal of barriers can be
accomplished (at least formally) eventually by legislation and monitoring practice. But the
deeper transformation that our population demands can be expedited most rapidly by the
world of productive employment seizing the opportunities offered by variation and social
difference and incorporating them into the employment process itself.
Valued and meaningful work offers the surest and most concrete way to assert the equality of
all in producing wealth. Irish employers have the option of using the diversity before them to
create not only new modes of work but new products that respond to the dreams and
aspirations of a changing, globalized world. Or they can continue to fight the battles of other
eras and assume that old verities and certainties still hold. They can continue to conform to
staid projections of market growth where social realities never impinge.
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The removal of barriers to participation will at the end of the day be about asserting the
primacy of vision. Vision about what our society means, about what it is for, can inform the
creative process of economic activity. It can give a sense of value and direction to the design
and development of socio-economic structures.
A lack of vision about the meaning of work means that we could be forever condemned to
repeat the desperate scramblings of past tactics. Any job at any price may kickstart a quantum
growth in employment creation. It cannot however maintain the qualitative improvement in
design, production and sales that signals a society has finally reached the point where it can
compete equally – and within its own articulated sense of equality. This is a real competition
where all are cherished equally. That quantum leap to equality via quality and best practice is
what proactive equality strategies in the field of employment must be all about.
Dr Alan Bruce
ULS
September 2003
abruce@iol.ie
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