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"Diversity has arrived in Austrian companies", explains Christoph Trauttenberg, Director of Michael Page in Austria. "Companies want diversity because they realise that this generates a company's success."
The diversity management study by Michael Page shows that the issue of diversity has reached around 84% of the surveyed managers. Almost two-thirds see diversity as an essential part of the corporate culture, approximately 23% refer to initiatives and programs around the issue of diversity in their company, 11% want to give it priority in the near future and only less than 5% have no plans regarding diversity management.
Attracting top candidates through diversity management
More than half of the surveyed managers indicated that the main benefit is to find attractive candidates for the company. They see diversity as enriching for the corporate culture for greater job satisfaction. The more international an organization operates, the more important is the promotion of diversity.
How do businesses communicate and promote diversity?
Companies with less than 500 employees communicate their diversity policy mainly in job interviews (86,4%) and advertise diversity via their values on the website. Larger companies with more than 500 employees have more resources available and for the most part account for around 86% of the company's website, intranet, brochures and in-house workshops. But also external communications such as press releases and interviews on the subject reach a high priority with around 77%. By using external communication on diversity topics, they improve their image in order to attract top candidates.
Work-life balance as the foundation for more diversity in the company
The most popular measures to promote diversity in the organisation are work-life-balance related issues. Nearly three-quarters of smaller-enterprise policies focus on flexible working time models and promoting work-life balance. Larger companies tend to find family-friendly initiatives such as childcare with up to 84%. In addition, 72% of these companies adapt their recruiting processes. Other 72% offer their teams diversity trainings and 68% promote gender-specific initiatives such as the women's quota.
Does diversity really help?
Seventy-two percent of the surveyed managers said that consistent diversity measures led to better team collaboration. As a consequence, the employees show a higher level of satisfaction and automatically improve the company image on the job market. As a result, the organisations also become more attractive to candidates confirm almost three-quarters of respondents.
Who cares about diversity?
The responsibility for diversity management depends on the size of the company and belongs either to the Management Board (48%), Human Resources (25%) or to individual working groups (13%).
