From July 1, companies and organizations will be able to understand how culturally diverse their workforce is, without breaking the rules regarding employee background registration. This is possible through the Barometer Cultural Diversity, which will be available at cost price from 1 July for all companies with more than 250 employees.

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW) has announced this.

The ministry supports the initiative to promote cultural diversity. “We ran a pilot earlier and it showed that employers are very happy when they understand how diverse their workforce really is,” said a spokesman Friday.

Organizations and companies can submit their workforce to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) and then receive an anonymized list showing the percentage of staff with a specific background. “That information can be broken down into already known subgroups of the personnel administration, such as function group or number of years in service.”

According to the spokesperson, smaller companies have insight into the proportion of people they employ with a non-Western background, but the larger ones often do not. “Insight brings awareness, and that should lead to action,” the spokesperson clarified.