I wholeheartedly support taking diversity away from HR (‘Is diversity destined for a bigger role without HR?‘,
For many years as an HR practitioner, I have struggled to get service managers to take diversity seriously (not in my current organisation, I hasten to add), as they did not see it as “their problem”, but an HR issue. Even when they were required to address issues of service delivery under the Disability Discrimination Act, they struggled with the concept and still thought it was HR’s problem.
Taking diversity out of HR and embedding it into the centre of the organisation’s strategic thinking will give it the importance it justly deserves.
Pauline Ohr, HR manager – diversity, Durham Constabulary