Differentiated and Individualized Personnel Management

Organizations are confronted with new challenges concerning their human resource management. Potential employees not only become more and more diverse with respect to socio-demographic characteristics, but also with respect to their needs and expectations. In order to deal with this growing heterogeneity, four different approaches towards the management of diversity exist: the deficit approach, the discriminatory approach, culturalization and individualization (cf. Glastra, 1999). Each approach offers different human resource management tools to deal with diversity. We carried out a descriptive survey to find out how Belgian companies deal with diversity. This study revealed that instruments offered by the individualization approach are most often applied to manage diversity.