Diversity Management, when policies meet practices: the case study of CERN

Diversity is a key managerial concept that is crucial to take into account when managing a company or organisation. From a societal standpoint, diversity is both a legal and moral aspect (with laws against discrimination, equality of individuals, etc.). From a human point of view, it is a source of intellectual enrichment, and also motivation through the aforementioned equality. From an economic standpoint, successful diversity management is a source of economic performance, from better talent acquisition and preservation, to reduced potential lawsuits and better public image. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is an organisation in which diversity has always been present; the Organization was created with core values of unity and diversity in mind, gathering together scientists from across Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War. However, diversity management was introduced at CERN only recently, evolving until its current state, finalized with the launch of the Diversity Programme in 2011. This Internship Thesis seeks to understand how CERN tackles the challenges of sourcing and recruiting a diverse pool of candidates from its 22 Member States. To achieve this, an understanding of the expectations of the Member States concerning diversity within the Organization is necessary, and how those, fused with CERN values and vision translates into rules and practices applied to the domain of talent acquisition. The objective is to compare the current situation and practices at CERN with the present state of research on how to manage efficiently diversity in organisations, from talent sourcing to retention. In order to do this, data has been collected through interviews and an analysis of the rules and regulations enforced, as well as the official personnel statistics. This research should highlight whether there are discrepancies between various theories compared to the current practices within the Organization. If divergences are found, this paper will extend its scope in trying to provide a way to improve the present CERN sourcing strategy by suggesting recommendations based on academic literature. The focus of this research paper is on the dimension of nationality, to avoid diluting attention on too many dimensions of diversity. The first part of this thesis includes an introduction to CERN: what it stands for, what is does, and how it came to be. Following this, a presentation of diversity at CERN, its policy and values is provided. Once a better understanding of the Organization is acquired, the theoretical framework is examined. This includes a general introduction to diversity and the recruitment associated to it. Three articles are then reviewed, and used as a basis for the theoretical analysis. The second part of this thesis is an analysis of the data available at CERN. First, the relationship between CERN and its Member States regarding recruitment and diversity is examined. This thesis aims to highlight that diversity is more than a societal and motivational tool for the Organization: it is also a powerful economic factor, as it includes elements of “return on investment” for the Member States. Then, the aforementioned theoretical analysis based on the articles of the theoretical framework is presented. In this subsection, one can observe that as the dimension of nationality is treated differently due to its economic aspect, its management differs slightly both from CERN’s policy and from the theoretical framework. Finally, the last part of the analysis contains an overview of the evolution of diversity of nationalities across CERN, its departments and professions over the past few years. One can observe here that diversity is not coherent across all dimensions of the Organization, suggesting that both exogenous and endogenous factors create differences between both departments and professions compared to the global workforce. This thesis ends on recommendations at three levels: firstly, the concept of “diversity value”. As observed through the internal analysis, diversity is not achieved transversally across the Organization, creating clusters of nationalities at some level, partially reducing the positive impact of diversity in the workforce. Improvements can be made to ensure that the Organization benefits from its nationality diversity at all levels. Secondly, the involvement of management. It is necessary to create a bond between top-management and diversity, to show that diversity is not just an ideal but also a practice linked to values that transcend the roles within the Organization. Finally, the extension of outreach to blue collar professions. It has been observed that there is a significant imbalance and overrepresentation of CERN’s Host States population in “blue collar” professions. Thus, it could be assumed that extending outreach across other Member States about the opportunities at CERN for such jobs may encourage people to apply and therefore improve diversity across these professional categories.