Project overview
Due to the demographic, social, and economic changes in Europe, workforce is becoming more and more diverse. In the face of such a workforce diversity, it becomes important for national and global companies to put in place policies and practices to build an inclusive and harmonious workplace, to adopt working environment where each employee would feel dignified regardless to his/her ethnicity, religious views, social status or age, and to integrate them into mainstream personnel. Effective Diversity Management can produce significant benefits in terms of recruitment and staff retention, creativity, problem-solving, and customer engagement. Companies can increase their profit margins through efficiency savings and innovation, while at the same time employed individuals benefit as well, which leads to increased levels of job satisfaction and employee loyalty.
Project outputs
- Raising awareness, informing, and communicating: the Diversity Charter and the Guide
- The Diversity Management and Inclusion Training Program
- The On-line Collaborative Platform
The project is innovative in the following ways:
- The Diversity Charter is a new phenomenon in the partner countries: Launching Diversity Charters in partner countries will become a qualitative leap brining individual diversity initiatives to a higher level. This would be a great step forward, as the signatory companies will publicly commit to implementing policies, strategies, or measures to enhance working environments so they are free of prejudice regarding employment inclusion, training, and promotion of different groups.
- In order to ensure continued inclusion of different employees, it is important to embed the principles of Diversity and Inclusion in each human resources management process, including adult education processes. Therefore, step-by-step training of HR managers and adult educators who teach future managers become of crucial importance.
- It provides an innovative program for training HR Managers and adult educators. This training is a significant tool for professional development that extends beyond the conventional boundaries of typical trainings, offering a series of online activities, tools, practices, and interactions. The consortium recognizes that the right to diversity should be incorporated not only in the entire range of processes, strategies, and actions of the companies but in its corporate culture and the society in general. Systematic respect for this principle contributes to the creation of an open and productive working environment, where employees are leaders, responsible, active, dignified, motivated, and ready for initiatives.
Project objectives
The project aims at achieving the following objectives:
- To launch, host, and manage the National Diversity Charter in partner countries, which will create awareness, go a long way towards managing diversity, and promote inclusion.
- To develop and disseminate a Practical Guide, approaches, and activities that will support inclusion and diversity and ultimately reduce discrimination and social inequality within the workplace and wider society.
- To provide training and professional development to managers, HR, personnel specialists, and adult educators, equipping them with the necessary knowledge, attitudes and competences to successfully manage and support diversity and inclusion at the workplace;
- To provide an OER platform that enables the target group and stakeholders to develop networks of practitioners who implement diversity management and inclusion practices, measures and/or policies.
Project partners
Founded in 2012, NGO Diversity Development Group (DDG) is a non-profit organisation with an objective to carry out social (scientific, applied, and infrastructural) projects and research in the field of human rights, education, equal opportunities, diversity, migration and integration. The strategic aim of the organisation is to improve and manage diversity towards a sustainable, tolerant and socially responsible society. DDG activities cover the following areas:
- Monitoring contemporary processes of migration and integration of migrants in order to accumulate, develop, and disseminate theoretical and empirical knowledge about contemporary migration processes in Lithuania;
- Developing equal opportunities for migrants and other vulnerable groups: the monitoring of living and working conditions, human rights and social inclusion, social mobility and networks;
- Promoting and consolidating fundamental rights and freedoms: equal rights for migrants and other vulnerable groups in areas of employment, housing, health care, social services, and education; policy analysis and recommendations;
- Taking preventative actions against xenophobia, racism, and intolerance;
- Fighting human trafficking.
By these activities, DDG aims for the following results
- Inform and educate the society about the various minority groups: dissemination of research results, seminars, conferences, trainings, social actions. Active participation in shaping public attitudes;
- Actively participate in the development and implementation of social policies to ensure the protection of vulnerable groups in the society (including prevention of discrimination, promoting tolerance, improving equality and human rights);
- While aiming for a harmonious, tolerant and fully integrated society, to create and develop mechanisms for intersectional cooperation: to include governmental institutions, non-governmental organisations, academia, independed experts and business sector in shaping social policies, political debates and discourse;
- Raise awareness about human trafficking in contemporary societies.
In order to achieve these results, in its activities DDG intends to include various social partners, which represent different groups in the society.
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Personalo valdymo profesionalų asociacija, shortly - PVPA (translates as Association for Human Resources Professionals) is the biggest national association embracing HR professionals in Lithuania. It was established in 2006 having purpose to expand the perception of the value of human resources in Lithuania. Now organization unites more than 170 organizations and individuals. The main goals of PVPA are:
- To advocate the importance of the work with Human Resources
- To develop HR Professionals, upgrade their qualifications
- To collect information and knowledge in Human Recourses Management and share it among the organizations
- To take part in legal regulation of Human Resources related issues.
PVPA mission: To induce the progress in human resources management. PVPA vision: Recognized organization which unites HR professionals. It encourages professional development and contributes to social well-being.
PVPA unites the most advanced HR professionals from international companies as well as HR specialists from small local companies and professors teaching students in Lithuanian universities and colleges.
PVPA provides a broad selection of HR events, training and mentoring programs, competitions, surveys, professional development and networking opportunities. It aims to widen the understanding and importance of human resources as well as to improve the level of qualification and effectiveness of human resource practice in Lithuania.
Public Establishment SOPA was created in 2006 by the initiative of private persons. The mission of organisation is to ensure equal opportunities for people facing difficulties to participate in work and social life. The core activity is job mediation services for from socially vulnerable groups (such as people with disabilities, long term unemployed, people with low qualification etc.). The job mediation services consist of individual assessment, vocational guidance, soft skills training, job search support and on-the-job support the person is employed.
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Open Centre is a Latvian based non-governmental organization working to advance respect and tolerance on local and international level, to support human rights defenders at risk and support activities advancing human rights.
OC is working in three thematic areas: support for human rights defenders at rights, providing training and technical support; enhance inclusive work environment for employees, as well as enhancing the introduction of diversity management principles in employment sector; and, strengthen LGBTI community, supporting development of policies advancing the equality
OC is working to introduce Diversity Charter in Latvia as well as implement diversity management principles in the human recourse policies in business, public and non-governmental sector. OC provides consultancy for individuals and various sectors regarding the implementation of Diversity and Inclusion policies, as well as annually is organizing Equality Index, Diversity Award and Diversity Business Forum.
KEAN is a non-profit organization with its headquarters located in Athens and offices and branches in other cities of Greece, such as in the regions of Ioannina and Lakonia. KEAN focuses on the preservation and promoting of universal values, such as peace, freedom, equal rights, social progress, human dignity, prosperity, solidarity, education, and environmental protection. The organization aims at pursuing activities and programs which are key to the improvement of the quality of life while giving special emphasis on education, training, participatory approaches, and social interventions for civic participation, the promotion and protection of human rights, and the protection of the environment. As such, KEAN devotes special attention to activities that support social minorities and disadvantaged social groups in their fight against discrimination, racism, and violence.
As an open, social youth community, KEAN aims to raise public awareness of social issues by actively engaging children, youth, and the public at large. For meeting the above aims, KEAN engages in a range of activities such as educational and training workshops, scientific research and analysis, roundtable discussions, dissemination, publicity, and awareness-raising events. Since its foundation in 2004, KEAN has gained substantial experience in projects and activities at a national and European level, establishing reliable partnerships and collaborations with a range of organizations from the public and private sector. In addition, the organization has actively participated in national programs designed and managed by national authorities, aiming at social integration of vulnerable groups of people. KEAN is comprised by a multidisciplinary group of people combining different disciplines and diverse skills and expertise. The staff of KEAN consists of people who have extensive experience in European programs and speak fluent English. They are adequately trained and have enough experience they acquired from their participation both in training programs, seminars, and workshops, and by cooperating with other organizations.
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The Center for Social Innovation (CSI) Ltd works around systemic social problems that affect the way we study, work, socialize, live our lives, and treat people around us. Our objective is to continually develop a broad understanding of what the root cause of these problems is, develop solutions that are socially uplifting and energizing, and sustain these solutions through disruptive processes that consider long term sustainability. Our strategic focus is for all the projects we are involved in to be intertwined and aimed to achieve common positive impact in the local, regional, and global ecosystem.
CSI employs professionals with over 50 years of collective experience in the fields of Social Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Education, System Rationalization, Information & Communication Technologies, Global Health Process – Life Sciences, Business Forensic Intervention, Youth Development & Motivation, and Resource Realignment with Goals and Objectives. Members of our Founding Team have worked in three continents and collaborated with organizations and individuals from various countries. The Team enlists their experiences to support the identification of systemic problems and development and implementation of smart and sustainable solutions to difficult social problems.
Our Team focuses on developing and introducing solutions for systemic social, education, and economic problems. These solutions are developed through various layers of interaction with stakeholders. We believe that the quality of life improves when the process of social innovation is leveraged to attain social justice, solve systemic problems, and develop solutions that may provide opportunities for individuals and organizations.
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