Managing Diversity in Italian Enterprises: a Research on Organizations employing Disabled Persons

In a context of high complexity for organisational structures and processes, human resources management play more and more a strategic role in making enterprises survive in globalised markets. In most of organizational realities, managers has to select and retain highly professionalized workers, to monitor their productivity and motivational paths, directing their efforts towards organizational goals, to manage conflicts between workers, for example the ones among persons of different ethnic or professional belonging, of different organizational positions, etc. This last point shows that diversity management is nowadays one of the most relevant challenges in human resources management field: each organization has to identify its specific strategies and methods, on the one hand, to ensure that all employees (of different race, colour, economic status, sex, disability, etc.) have the opportunity to maximize their potentials and, on the other hand, to enhance workers’ self-development and to increase their contribution to the organization (CIPS, 2005; European Community, 2003). The research we present in this paper deals with diversity management topics with specific reference to the case of disabled persons employed in Italian enterprises, bound by law to have a minimum quota of these workers in their staff. The research has been run by a research group in the University of Genoa between September 2005 and June 2006 as the first phase of an Equal funded project, named PERSONE (that is the Italian acronym of paths of occupational sustain in the new economy), aiming at experimenting innovative forms of services, on the one hand, for people with occupational disadvantages in order to make them access the labour market and/or to remain in it, and, on the other hand, for enterprises employing these workers (or willing to) with the objective to help them in managing the diversity in their organizations. In this context, in order to give PERSONE project inputs for the subsequent operational activities, the analysis aimed at pursuing two general objectives: - studying the characteristics of the relationship between organizations and disabled persons with particular reference to the diversity management strategies and methods used by enterprises, for example: strategies developed in order to comply the law (n. 68/1999, imposing the employment of disabled persons) and, at the same time, pursuing organizational goals; selection criteria used for disabled persons; use of public or private services for the recruitment of disabled persons or for sustaining in difficult situations occurring during the working time; the professional opportunities given to these workers; their relationships with colleagues; the existence of training activities (both organized by the enterprise or by other external organizations) specifically designed for disabled workers or for their coollegues with them; the existence of an enterprise tutor for these workers; etc. - analysing the problems in the relation between disabled persons and enterprises in order to identify their needs of support services (for example, training, recruitment, transport and tutorship ones) able to make the relation more fruitful. This goal is strictly connected with the core activities of PERSONE project since the innovative services it want to develop aims at solving problems (of both the subjects, enterprises and workers) which find no answer in existence public and private services. In order to achieve the above mentioned objectives, the research has been run mainly according to qualitative methodology, considered by researchers more suitable than quantitative one in analysing such a delicate and complex topic. The research developed into six phases: 1. Definition of boundaries of the field of analysis through a bibliographical study and 37 interviews to qualified testimonials (working for public institutions, trade unions, business associations, non profit sector, etc.) in order to increase researcher knowledge on: the different cultural and operational approaches to disability at the international level, Italian laws in the field of employment of disabled people, European situation with respect to the relation between work and persons with disabilities, previous researches and project on the topic. 2. Quantitative study of disability and work on the basis of institutional data at the Italian level, using data of the Italian Institute for Statistics (Istat, 2001; 2003; 2005), and at the European one (Grammenos, 2003) in order to define a quantitative background of the researched phenomenon. 3. Definition of the research hypothesis on the basis of the context analysis (phase 1) in order to precisely define the methodology for the study of the disabled persons work experiences and the ones of the enterprises employing them. Eleven hypothesis have been identified divided into four groups: a. Hypothesis on the disabled person b. Hypothesis on the disabled worker c. Hypothesis on the enterprises d. Hypothesis on the services 4. Analysis of the experiences of disabled workers by the way of eight focus groups (Bloor, Frankland, Thomas, Robson, 2002) -with a total of 53 disabled persons involved with quite an equal distribution in terms of age, sex and educational level: four with persons with disability employed at the moment of the analysis and the other four with persons unemployed at the moment of the research but with previous working experiences in situation of disability. The persons participating in the focus group have been selected with the support of public agencies in charge of occupational policies for disadvantaged persons and non profit organizations working in the field of work integration. This selection process, whose characteristics can be defined a not probabilistic sample (Palumbo, Garbarino, 2006) allowed to run successfully the focus groups because of the helpfulness of these persons, implication that the research group considered very important. The topics discussed during the focus groups were, for example: level of motivation of the workers, relationship with colleagues, perception of the attitude of the managers towards disability, their opportunity of career, etc. 5. Analysis of the enterprises attitude and experiences towards disabled workers by the way of 34 semi-structured interviews to human resources manager of private enterprises (selected with the help of public authorities in charge of work integration policies, business associations and trade unions) bound by law to employ persons with disability and, consequently, employing them at the moment of the research. The enterprises interviewed are quite equally distributed in terms of: sector (industry and services), size (small and medium enterprises but also big corporations), scope of their activity (regional, national, international). The interviews with managers dealt with the following topics: the selection criteria used for disabled persons, the specific managerial instruments used to manage these workers, the eventual changes in the organizational climate caused by the presence of disabled employed persons, etc. 6. Cross analysis of the results and discussion of the hypothesis. This final part of the research aims at considering the results coming form phases 3 and 4 in order to discuss the hypothesis proposed (phase 2) and obtain some conclusions about the management of diversity of enterprises bound by law to employ disabled persons. The interpretation of these results have been done relying on the human resource management theory (first of all Beer et al., 1985, but especially on its motivational dimensions, - Hertzberg, 1966; Maslow, 1954; Harsey Blanchard, 1977), with particular reference to the authors studying the diversity management topics (Barabino, Jacobs and Maggio, 2001; Cox and Blake, 1991; Belfrey and Schmidt, 1989;). As a general result coming from the research, we found that enterprises have nowadays developed diversity management strategies and methods mainly based on the selection of the “right” disabled person to employ. In other terms, most of disabled persons working in enterprises have equal opportunities as other colleagues but often this is not because of a specific organizational investment in developing their potential but it is due to the careful selection process leading enterprises to employ persons whose disability is, for its nature, not relevant for the position they have to cover. This conclusion can be consider important for the aim of the project, because it put in evidence the great relevance and the opportunities for specific services whose action field is the phase that comes before, in creating conditions of best coherence with organizational expectations.