OECD Report on Fostering Diversity in the Public Service

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held an Expert Meeting on Fostering Diversity on 1st October 2009. It was produced by the Public Employment and Management Working Party.

There seems to be a growing consensus among OECD countries that pursuing diversity may help to preserve core public service values such as fairness, transparency, impartiality and representativeness. The search for efficiency gains is another driver as one of the main expected benefits is an increase in innovation. Diversity may also contribute to the raising of the quality of public services by improving the understanding of community needs and social dialogue and communication with the wider population. Diversity can also help to achieve important outcomes in major policy areas by tackling challenges such as ageing populations.

Diversity principles should be part of public management reform as these initiatives cannot succeed in isolation. The challenge of pursuing diversity is how to do it in a sustainable, responsive and professional manner. Policies should be coherent and intelligible to all stakeholders and demand strong leadership if they are to maintain the impetus for reform through persuasion, negotiation and influencing people's values and culture. Achieving diversity is a long term process that must be thought of as an integral part of strategic planning.

Diversity policies are usually formulated by a central Human Resources Management (HRM) body which is responsible for developing the strategy, monitoring progress, promoting the benefits, linking diversity issues to strategic workforce planning and providing guidance and support to agencies for the implementation of their own diversity policies. There is a need to address discriminatory practices that permeate all aspects of the HRM process. Many OECD countries have agreed that the following measures will help to redress the balance in relation to recruitment of candidates

1) diversify the communication channels to reach a wider audience
2) motivate people to apply for vacancies in the public service
3) relax the selection process and criteria to make them more inclusive but still focused on analysing skills, qualities and competencies required for the job
4) facilitate the integration and retention of new recruits to the workplace

The benefits of diversity are likely to emerge slowly and be less apparent to the outside world. It is necessary to push for a change of attitude towards diversity. If discrimination and intolerance are not properly treated diversity will be harder to attain.

If the public service is to be efficient and effective in delivering public services to a socially, ethnically, culturally and economically diverse society it needs to reflect society. Despite being a long term project diversity may produce some benefits for the short term. Fostering diversity could help strengthen trust in government by portraying it as responsible, responsive and legitimate.