Access to Opportunities in the Workplace

Strategic Action Area: Opportunities for Access to the Workplace

Introduction

As Ireland moves further towards being a fully-fledged knowledge-based economy, new pressures are emerging on the traditional model of labour-force management. Changes in workforce demographics and labour market requirements mean that Ireland’s approach to managing its labour force will need to become increasingly strategic, responsive and innovative. As IDA Ireland re-focuses its strategy on attracting new forms of industrial activity, and as Enterprise Ireland focuses its efforts on expanding the export performance of indigenous firms, it is imperative that the labour force maintains the capacity to meet the changing expectations of employers.

At the same time, and complementary to this demand-side agenda, the near full employment levels and record job growth means that there is now an unprecedented opportunity to address the systemic barriers to participation that have long been experienced by certain sections of the workforce. The National Workplace Strategy highlights the need to address barriers relating to all nine grounds defined under the Employment Equality Acts of 1998 and 2004, and identifies particular challenges in supporting women, older workers, lone parents, people with disabilities, non-national workers, and people from other marginalised groups such as the travelling community.

At the enterprise level, the competitive and innovative capacity of organisations across the public and private sectors depends more and more on the contribution of the workforce. Diversity is an increasingly important instrument for attracting and retaining talented employees and, managed well, can be a significant source of competitive advantage.

The National Workplace Strategy outlines a series of recommendations that address four broad policy issues:

European Year of Equal Opportunities for All

2007 has been designated as European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. The Equality Authority has published a strategy for Ireland’s participation in this year. The strategy outlines a number of important measures to research work practices, support initiatives and raise general awareness at the enterprise level of the challenges and opportunities in taking a proactive approach to managing diversity and equality. The Authority is working with the Trade Union movement on a number of initiatives, and is developing a series of five policy papers on issues relating to equality in the workplace, that will form a key input into the ICTU Biennial Delegate Conference in July 2007.

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Research

In 2007, the National Centre for Partnership and Performance will publish two reports which examine the role and impact of diversity and equality management on business performance and staff outcomes. The first report will present a review of the international literature highlighting the business case for equality and diversity. The second report will publish the results of a survey of the top 1000 companies, highlighting the range of management practices in place in a sample of these companies, and analysing the impact that these practices have on labour productivity, product innovation and staff turnover levels.

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People with Disabilities

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Women returning to the Workforce

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Supporting older people in the Workforce

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Supporting Migrant Workers

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