The Federal Government’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner promotes diversity in the world of work.
(Photo: IMAGO/Jürgen Heinrich)
Berlin The Federal Government’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Ferda Ataman, criticized deficits in Germany on the “German Diversity Day”, which is intended to encourage diversity in the world of work. “In an international comparison, we are still well behind in Germany,” Ataman told the Handelsblatt. This is a problem above all when cross-border cooperation is pending: “For anyone who wants to work internationally with other companies, it is important to promote diversity,” said the anti-discrimination officer.
Pressure to act is also created by the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Responsibility Directive (CSRD), which came into force in January of this year. It obliges large companies to publish reports on how they deal with environmental, social and governance issues. This also includes the factor of diversity. Companies have until the summer of 2024 to implement the directive.
expected reporting obligations
Ataman therefore warns companies to deal with it now. “Anyone who has not yet started with the topic of diversity management should embark on this journey soon.” The reporting obligations would soon come as a result of the CSRD directive – many companies are therefore already dealing with it.
Basically that’s how it is. Anyone who asks around in HR departments and management floors can hardly avoid the term “diversity”. “Without diversity there is no economic success” is a message that 49 heads of German business have committed themselves to via the network Beyond Gender Agenda. 13 of them run a Dax group.
At the same time, however, it is noticeable that many companies are still positioned very homogeneously, contrary to this trend. Of the 49 CEOs who have joined the Beyond Gender Agenda campaign, only 10 are women. Diversity is also considered an economic factor: Studies show that more diverse companies are more successful.
More than just empowering women
The anti-discrimination officer advises companies to first take stock of how diverse their workforce already is. “Diversity is often still equated with the advancement of women,” she criticizes. Diversity also means considering people with different sexual identities, religions or backgrounds.
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In order to address these people, Ana-Cristina Grohnert, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Diversity Charter employers’ initiative, advises making the hiring process non-discriminatory.
In order to address people with disabilities, it must be ensured that the workplace is also barrier-free, for example whether the IT can also be used by blind people. So far, access to the labor market has been difficult for many people with severe disabilities: over 46 percent of them were registered as unemployed in 2022.
Grohnert warns that even if it is possible to hire people with different characteristics such as gender or origin, keeping these people in the company is another challenge. “Employees quickly notice when they are working in a place where they are not actually welcome and are not accepted as a person,” she says. The anti-discrimination commissioner of the federal government Ataman points out to companies that it is mandatory to set up a complaints office against discrimination.
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For Grohnert it is important to emphasize that diversity in the company also means more perspectives and thus more options for “innovative and future-oriented action”. “The economy should also be a mirror of society,” she says.
Fixed quota discussion
But in reality there are still many who said: I prefer to work with people who are like me – and hire them accordingly. Although the economy has come a long way in terms of diversity in recent years, it is “absolutely not yet where it should be”.
In 2022, the proportion of women on the executive boards of the 100 largest German companies was 15.6 percent – ten years earlier it was 4.4 percent. Grohnert emphasizes that the specified quota for women at board level in 2021 was an important additional driver of this development.
However, the anti-discrimination officer does not believe in private sector policy setting quotas. However, each company must decide for itself whether it really makes economic sense not to open up to new employment groups.
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