Diversity and management practices in Finnish companies from foreign employees’ perspective

Due to several factors contributing to the increasing labor shortage, Finland has been shifting focus on attracting employees from foreign backgrounds. As companies’ workforce becomes increasingly international and diverse, managing diversity effectively is essential for companies to obtain its full benefits and potential. This phenomenon calls for Finnish companies making suitable adaptations to accommodate the new influx of employees and preparing for possible changes in management practices. There has been a substantial amount of research on diversity management from management perspective, however, there is a gap in understanding the topic from employee perspective. The purpose of the thesis is to examine how diversity and its management practices in large Finnish companies are perceived by their foreign employees. Six multinational corporations (MNCs) representing the most widely recognized diversity management practices are interviewed. The findings describe the benefits and challenges of diversity in workplace from the perspective of case companies’ employees. These findings are mostly aligned with the presented literature reviews on the benefits and challenges of diversity. Similarly, the findings share a similar view of literature on: the vital role of leadership in diversity management; the significance of inclusive recruitment in diversity in building a diverse workforce and the impact of equal pay on employee job satisfaction. The main contribution of the thesis is to explore foreign employees’ perception of diversity management practices and to add more insights into the limited employee-centered research on the subject of diversity management