Diversity Management Instruments in Polish Organisations

Abstract

Purpose: Although diversity management as a concept and a term has been used since the 1980s, it is still a relatively seldom-used strategy in Polish organisa-tions. As previous research shows, organisations define and implement diversity management in various ways, which consequently leads to the usage of different instruments. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to present the different diversity management instruments used by Polish organisations. Special emphasis was put on the question whether the organisations have a dedicated budget for diversity management and whether they include diversity information in their reports. The aim of the paper was to present an overview of the instruments used by the organisations – leaders of diversity management in Poland.

Design/methodology/approach: For the purpose of this paper telephone-depth-in-terviews (TDIs) with representatives from companies implementing diversity management were conducted. The enterprises were chosen through purposive sampling. The organisations were firstly screened for implementing diversity management through an analysis of their web sites and reports. The organisations implementing diversity management and informing stakeholders about it through their web sites and reports were further included into the study. The respondents chosen for the TDIs were representatives of the organisations responsible for diversity management or indicated by the company itself as the most competent to give information about the organisation’s diversity management related actions.

Findings: The conducted research has shown the variety of diversity manage-ment instruments used in the interviewed organisations is large. The instruments differ from simple ones like organising a diversity day and promoting the idea of diversity and inclusion through simple channels to complex systems of moni-toring and assessing the implementation of diversity management. Furthermore, all organisations declare that they include diversity in their reports. Additionally, almost all of them admit that they do not have a separate budget for diversity management actions and initiatives.

Research and practical limitations/implications: For the purpose of this paper a qualitative research approach was chosen. Therefore, the presented results are not representative, but, due to the fact that only a few organisations in Poland implement diversity management, the entities interviewed for the purpose of this paper can be treated as flagships of this strategy in Poland and as a kind of good practices.

Originality/value: The paper presents an overview of diversity management instruments used by Polish organisations with special emphasis put on bud-geting and reporting. It defines diversity budgeting in terms of assessing every action from the perspective of its consequences towards all diversity dimensions represented in the company, while taking into account the human and financial resources.

Paper type: Research paper.