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