Hewlett-Packard has asked its national managers in 23 European countries to draw up action plans on diversity.
The US multinational, which is the largest IT employer in Europe with
46,000 staff, is making the action plans a central part of its efforts
to increase the proportion of women, ethnic minorities, disabled people
and older people in its workforce.
Each country manager has designated a senior staff manager as ‘country
champion’ with overall responsibility for the plans, which will be
based on more flexible working patterns and training to increase staff
awareness of diversity issues.
‘Every action plan has to be culturally sensitive and localized as much
as possible,’ said Josefine van Zanten, HP’s diversity director for
Europe, the Middle East and Africa. ‘Each country managing director is
held accountable for each plan, and as diversity and inclusion is on
HP’s “scorecard” for leaders as one of the issues they are asked to
drive forward, then it will have an impact on how their performance is
judged.’ HP did not comment on the weighting of individual issues on
its scorecard, but said that diversity was a key component.
Van Zanten claimed that the company had won several large contracts as
a result of its diversity policies, including a recent $200million
(£112m) deal with Procter & Gamble. ‘We were toe-to-toe with our
main competitor but then we were both asked about our diversity
programmes and our record greatly helped in the final decision,’ she
said. ‘P&G have gone on record as saying it was that aspect which
really contributed to us winning the deal.’
