The doom-mongers would have us believe that diversity initiatives will be one of the casualties of the economic downturn. But now more than ever, it is important to make the business case for effective strategies and demonstrate the importance of managing diversity in sustaining high-performance working.

There are still many organisations that see managing diversity as a compliance issue; about ticking the right boxes to keep within the law. But it is clear from past CIPD research that a preoccupation with compliance leads to underinvestment in diversity initiatives and the expertise to drive change. This can make managing diversity superficial and fuels doubt about its relevance to the bottom line.