workforce diversity in the public sector€¦ · public sector organizations today face a myriad of...
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Workforce Diversity in the Public Sector
Project supported by a grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research | Social Sciences (FSE)
Anders Ryom Villadsen
Background
Public sector organizations today face a myriad of challenges pertaining to workforce diversity. Because of
immigration and increasingly inclusive labour markets the pool of prospective employees for public organi-
zations is growing ever more diverse with respect to ethnicity, social and educational background, as well
as age and gender composition. This provides a vital challenge for managers about how to manage, at-
tract and retain employees with diverse needs.
Background of diversity:
Whom would you hire?
Ali or Jens?
We sent application to 222 real job openings in
the public and private sector. To each job opening
Danish and Middle Eastern sounding names were
randomly applied to pre-constructed applications
and CVs. We recorded the frequency with which
each type of applicant was called back for an in-
terview.
Do Danish employers discriminate?
Applicants with middle eastern sounding names
on average have to send 5.5 applications per in-
terview.
Applicants with Danish sounding names on aver-
age have to send 3.6 applications per interview.
This public sector is no modal employer and at
least as bad as the private sector
Management of diversity:
Do diverse workplace require more
managerial oversight?
Conflicting theories:
Diversity may lead to increased performance
and more innovation and, consequently, little
managerial oversight is needed
Diversity may lead to more conflict and
disagreement and, consequently, more
managerial oversight is needed
Setting: Danish
municipal workplaces
Workforce diversity is related
to managerial intensity in
complex ways
Fewer managers in female
dominated organizations
More managers when pro-
portion of ethnic diversity
exceeds app. 15 %
Consequences of diversity:
Workplace diversity and turnover
Are employees more likely to leave diverse
organisations? Or are diverse organisations
attractive and diminish turnover?
Does it matter whether you belong to the
majority group or a minority group (based on
age, gender, ethnicity)?
They have same demographic characteristics, education and work experience.
Work in Progress