NORRTÄLJE: CITY OF DIVERSITY

Norrtälje Municipality with its 55,000 inhabitants accounts for about one-third of the surface area of Stockholm County. Much of the municipality has a rural flavour, interspersed with other urban areas besides the city of Norrtälje. The area also includes an archipelago, with about 11,000 islands. This means that in summer the population swells by an additional 100,000, not including all the tourists passing through.

Diversity for progress
As with other countries in Europe, Sweden faces a number of challenges relating to long-term sustainable growth. One of these issues is the supply of labour for both the private and public sectors.
 
Foresighted community leaders ensured that Norrtälje was the first municipality in Sweden to employ a full-time diversity consultant back in 1999. The municipality wanted to work strategically and intentionally to become an attractive employer in the competition for tomorrow's labour force.

After being honoured with the ‘2000 Diversity Municipality of the Year’ award in Sweden, which was created by the minister for integration, the municipality has continued its endeavour and is currently involved in several projects with finance provided by sources such as the European Social Fund.

Ongoing projects

FAIR
The ‘Equal’ Future Adopted Inclusive Recruitment (FAIR) project has developed a structured, socially oriented, non-discriminatory recruitment model that focuses on skills. Eight national and three European partners are participating in the project, which began in May 2005 through to December 2007.

As part of this project we created a quality-assurance model for every step of the recruitment process. At the beginning of the project we had the following goals:

• Increased gender equality and decreased discrimination in the labour market
• Greater fairness and respect among candidates from minority groups as well as from majority groups throughout the recruitment process
• Greater attractiveness as an employer and improved service to citizens
• Improved quality in the recruitment process and greater expertise among newly hired personnel.

We are well on the way to meeting these goals.

Cross Cultural Competence (C³)
C³ is a leadership-training programme for strategic department heads in diversity and intercultural communication, which Norrtälje and three other municipalities carried out from September 2006 through June 2007.

The training programme included the basics of intercultural communication, causes and effects of culture shock, formation and leadership of multicultural teams in municipalities and organisations, conflict management, solutions and models from different countries, developing municipal diversity strategies, case studies, group exercises, and discussions based on the visions and experiences of participants.  

National Diversity Network
Following on from the 2000 Diversity Municipality of the Year award, administrators at various levels in local and regional governments in Sweden sought a venue for sharing information. Norrtälje Municipality took the initiative to launch a project financed by the Ministry of Integration that resulted in the formation of a National Diversity Network. Today, about 30 municipalities and organisations and two county administrative boards belong to the network through which they increase knowledge and develop tools to get the job done.