SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS FROM INTEGRATIONSSTATUS, 1^ST QUARTER 2001, PREPARED BY CATINÉT FOR HK

 

August 2001

 

Editor: Lasse Rangstrup, CATINÉT, in cooperation with Steen Karlsen, HK's Department of Political and Economic Strategies

 

 

Intro: The company's role in the integration process

In the first quarterly survey this year, CATINÉT has substantiated the probability that a positive correlation exists between how companies and institutions handle integration and their competitiveness.

 

The companies and institutions that are capable of positively including their "New Dane" (first or second generation immigrants to Denmark) employees in a positive manner ensure that their New Dane employees are not only more dynamic, but also far more willing to recommend their company to other New Dane employees.

 

In this summary, we will focus on how these results have been reached and whether the results can work as a new tool in integration contexts.

 

 

Diversity and diversity management

As a result of the influx of refugees and immigrants over the past twenty years, New Danes constitute a striking change in the population composition.

 

In 1980, there were a total of 62,599 refugees and immigrants from developing countries in Denmark. By 2000, the figure had increased to 275,591, corresponding to 5.2 percent of the total Danish population (source: Statistics Denmark).

 

From the company's point of view, this trend is undoubtedly the greatest change in the recruitment base and labour force that existing Danish companies have ever had to relate to and handle.

 

Offhand, it is no simple managerial task.

 

But there is a management tool that can be utilised by companies as a way of positively handling the increasing diversity: diversity management. Diversity management involves a conscious, productive approach to diversity, by employees and management alike. In brief, diversity management deals with the ability to establish an including company that can make use of the multiplicity inherent in the workforce.

 

A very precise definition of diversity management was formulated by the Equal Opportunity Board under the Municipality of Copenhagen in 1999:

 

   A conventional company is managed as if all people are alike, apart from their professional qualifications. It is universally acceptable to say that there is no difference between men and women. And employees with a different ethnic background are accepted as long as they behave like Danes. The result is a "homogenisation" of employees.

   Diversity management clashes with this way of thinking. The inherent message in this management style is that it is important to build up a company with a versatile preparedness by means of people with different backgrounds. Why?

  Because the companies' customers, users, and business associates are different. Only by being in command of as broad a range of human resources as possible will a company be able to provide the best possible services to customers and users. When new employees are being recruited, it should therefore be considered how the human resources can be enhanced with new human qualities instead of more of what already exists.

 

The definition grasps the core of the issue. Diversity management is not a question of equal opportunity but concerns a positive approach to the diversity of the employees.

 

 

Including and excluding companies

A company that is good at internal cooperation, learning and development across cultural differences within the organisation is including. Its antipode is the excluding company.

 

In order to measure the ability of Danish companies to be including, a representative cross-section of employed New Danes were asked to rate their own company in regards to several variables:

 

Are you listened to? Do your colleagues and managers consider you to be just as professionally skilled as your Danish colleagues? Do you have the same career and training opportunities as your Danish colleagues? Do you have the same decision-making authority as Danish colleagues on the same level?

 

Eight of these questions were collected for the variable . the inclusion ratio. The individual results of the eight questions appear in the text box.

 

 

How often do your managers ask you what you would like to work with in the future?
Very often, often or occasionally	35.5%
Rarely or never	61.8%
To what extent do you think that you have the same career opportunities at the company where you work as your Danish colleagues?
Have more or less the same career options	54.7%
Have fewer or none of the same career opportunities	34.4%
To what extent do you feel you can exert personal influence on your daily workday?
Very great or great	64.7%
Some, lesser or not at all	30.7%
To what extent do you feel you have the same decision-making authority as your Danish colleagues?
Yes	67.4%
No	32.6%
To what extent do your managers perceive you as being just as professionally skilled as your Danish colleagues?
Just as professionally skilled	74.2%
Less professionally skilled	12.8%
To what extent do your Danish colleagues perceive you as being just as professionally skilled as themselves?
Just as professionally skilled	62.8%
Less professionally skilled	24.0%
To what extent do you feel you have the same training options as your Danish colleagues?
Have more or less the same training options	65.1%
To a lesser extent or none of the same training opportunities	21.4%
Do you and your colleagues often talk about your cultural background?
Very often or often	44.9%
Some, a little or not at all	50.1%
Note: "don't know" has been omitted for all questions

 

Inclusion and competitiveness

The competitiveness of a company is extremely related to its employees. There is no doubt that a committed, dynamic employee who is actively involved in the company's development is much more valuable for the company than a passive employee who solely attends to a defined function.

 

An indication of an involved, dynamic employee is that the employee has and gets new ideas on how to improve the daily work, e.g. new ideas for improving products and processes.

 

Needless to say, it is interesting that we see a direct correlation with the inclusion ratio, i.e. that the companies which ensure that New Danes have the same decision-making authority as their Danish colleagues are considered to be just as professionally skilled by fellow employees, managers and others and are also the companies that get the most dynamic New Dane employees.

   

Another area that is essential for the companies' competitiveness is their recruitment base. According to the Danish Employers' Confederation, the labour force will fall by around forty thousand persons in the next five years as a direct result of population trends. The public sector in particular will have to attract many workers.

 

On a labour market where labour is in short supply, it is the employees who choose the company and not the company which chooses the employee.

 

This is precisely why it is necessary that companies are capable of recruiting among New Danes, both in terms of their capacity for absorbing New Danes into their staff, but also in terms of even getting them to apply.

 

It is shown below that the lower the capacity of a company to be including towards New Dane employees, the less are the chances that New Dane employees will recommend the company to other New Danes.

 

This is interesting, precisely because more than thirty percent of all New Danes chose to apply for work at a given company because they had heard about the company via their social network.

 

Salaried employees assess their company as being mostly including.

It is interesting to examine which professional groups assess their workplace as mostly including. It gives an indication of which type of companies do best. 

 

It is seen in this context that New-Dane salaried employees give a positive picture of their workplace. On the other hand, semi-skilled and unskilled workers are less positive in the assessment of their company. Only 26 percent of semi-skilled New-Dane workers assess that their company has the competency for internal cooperation, learning and development across cultural differences within the organisation. 

 

A brief examination of how the various unemployment-fund members rate their workplace also reveals differences. Unemployment fund members at HK undoubtedly assess their workplace as mostly including in relation to the members of SiD's and KAD's unemployment fund.

 

In this context, it is also interesting to see how the public sector is positioned in relation to the private labour market. Only a small difference is seen here. The private labour market has a tendency to be slightly more including than the public sector.

 

The fact that the public sector does not receive a better assessment may quickly prove to be a problem for the public sector itself. It is estimated that the public sector must recruit between 5000 and 8500 persons annually up to year 2005 as a result of natural withdrawal (source: the National Association of Local Authorities in Denmark).

 

Professional proficiency, decision-making authority and training

Up to now, we have only looked at the total ability of companies and institutions to be including in regards to New Dane employees. In the following, we will delve deeper into the figures and look at a few items which have specific areas for improvement.

New Danes have been asked whether they think that their managers and fellow employees respectively consider New Danes to be just as professionally competent. The picture is relatively positive since few are directly critical in regards to the professional qualifications of New Danes. But it is seen that New Danes' colleagues have a lower opinion of New Danes' qualifications than do the managers of New Danes. In regards to diversity, it is necessary for Danish employees to recognise the qualifications of their New Dane colleagues. Innovation and creativity are greatly nourished by recognition. In a management perspective, the stage is set for . with a view to the recognition of each other's resources . making an effort in regards to the employees.

 

The figure below shows how employed New Dane members of HK's unemployment fund rate their fellow employees in relation to the average assessment. Here it is seen that New-Dane members of HK's unemployment fund experience that their colleagues rate the professional qualifications of the New Danes lower than the average.

 

By looking at the training possibilities, on the other hand, New-Dane members of HK's unemployment fund assess more often than other employed members that they have the same training possibilities as their Danish colleagues. Nearly 80 percent of all New-Dane members of HK's unemployment fund assess that they have the same training possibilities. The figure for all employed members is 65 percent.

 

If we briefly look at decision-making authority, we see that only 67 percent of New Danes feel that they have the same decision-making authority as their Danish colleagues. Conversely, 32 percent do not think they have the same.

 

These figures slur over striking fluctuations between the various trade groups. We see in the figure below that semi-skilled workers and unskilled workers have the lowest rate of perception of the same decision-making authority as their Danish colleagues.

 

Concluding remarks: a new tool that centres on the company

The point of introducing diversity management as part of the IntegrationStatus study is not that the entire integration effort should be reconsidered. However, our wish has been to describe diversity management as a new tool that is complementary to currently existing management tools.

 

One way of seeing this tool is as being primarily targeted on the company. In other words, diversity management can be perceived as a possible strategy for improving the company's competitiveness. In this perspective, the current study shall encourage companies to become involved on their own in the integration issue with a view to their own profit.

 

Yet another way of seeing the first quarterly report's studies is from a more general societal perspective, whereby a lack of ability in diversity management constitutes a substantial barrier to a lasting integration of New Danes in the Danish labour market.

 

The study shows that there are companies which have an excluding approach to New Danes. A large part of these companies do not have New Dane employees who suggest ideas for improving the daily work. Nor do a large portion of these companies have New Dane employees who recommend their company to others.

 

In other words, the including company will have better experiences with New Dane employees compared to the excluding company. As a result, the excluding company will have a less positive attitude to the issue of hiring New Dane employees. Therefore, the lacking proficiency of excluding companies in internal cooperation, learning and development across cultural differences within the organisation constitutes a barrier to the employment opportunities of New Danes.

 

All things considered, the potential exists, from a societal perspective, for encouraging the companies to work with diversity management.