Many employers are insufficiently aware of discrimination in the workplace and, despite the high demand for staff, people with an occupational disability remain on the sidelines. The Social and Cultural Planning Office (SCP) draws these conclusions in the fourth edition of a long-term survey among employers that will be published on Tuesday.
There is a considerable difference between the intention of employers and daily practice, as can be concluded from the latest SCP study Mapping the labor market: employers, in which between 1500 and 2800 employers participate. Employers are struggling to find and retain staff. Meanwhile, the workload for staff is growing. Employers would like to reduce this, but they are not sure how.
Despite the tight labor market, they seem to hold on to their image of ‘the ideal employee’. For example, people with an occupational disability still have a relatively small chance of finding work. The SCP study shows that in 2021-2022, as in previous years, less than one in five employers employed people with an occupational disability.
Not responsible
The number of employers that do not feel responsible for hiring this group even increased slightly: from 23 to 29 percent. According to employers, this willingness would increase if arrangements were made to cover the risks of absenteeism due to illness. Many employers are not aware that these schemes already exist.
SCP also sees the difference between the intention of companies and practice in the pursuit of an inclusive work culture. Many employers say they attach great importance to inclusion and diversity and want to pay attention to combating discrimination. A large majority of employers say that discrimination in their own organization is rare. However, according to SCP, this is not consistent with its own previous research Perceived discrimination in the Netherlands II from 2020. This showed that (potential) employees do experience discrimination during the recruitment and selection procedure, in the workplace or during contract extensions and promotions.
Even when it comes to the intention of companies to allow women to move up to higher and top positions, this is only partially fulfilled in practice. The share of women in top and management positions lags behind that of men, according to the survey, while for the first time since the start of the Labor Demand Panel, more than half of all employees are women and one in five employers say they are prioritizing more women in have higher positions.
Although almost all employers feel responsible for combating work stress, one in three indicate that they have no influence on the degree of work stress experienced by employees. It is also striking that a third of employers believe that employees who experience a lot of work stress are not suitable for the work they do.
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