FULL employment has brought about a revolution in employment practices. The corporate world used to be able to discriminate — no old people, no untrained youngsters, and definitely no people with disabilities or inconvenient religious beliefs.

Now employees can pick and choose the companies they prefer to work for, and surveys show that they choose not only on the basis of pay and conditions but on intangibles — will they be proud to work for company X? Does company Y share their values and ethics? Employers are also coming to realise that minorities, including the disabled as well as racial and religious groups, are markets they need to address. To do this effectively, they need to understand them and the best way of getting to know their needs is to employ them. For most of the latter part of the 20th century, older workers complained of being progressively sidelined before being pushed out at the earliest opportunity. Nobody could get a new job after the age of 50.

This is also changing. Companies are discovering that a lifetime’s experience and knowledge is valuable and needs to be retained, recorded and passed on to upcoming generations. As a result, older workers are being given jobs as mentors, enabling them to retain respect even when they might not be as productive as they were in their prime.

In this report, we look at how companies are becoming more inclusive, though much more needs to be done before they become truly diverse.