The recruitment of non-Western immigrants and more women will have to be considered to meet Europe's workforce needs in 15 or 20 years, according to an international expert. This would require a major change in management culture, she said.
Ms Gunnila Maseliez-Steen, president of Kontura International consultants in Sweden, told a conference entitled Embracing Diversity in Dublin yesterday that the fall in the birth-rate throughout Europe would create major employment problems. These would be exacerbated by the number of people born in the 1940s seeking early retirement.
"There is a tendency to believe that there is a reduction in the numbers needed to work," she told the conference, organised by the Office for Health Management. "But information technology has reached its peak when it comes to replacing people.
"We either have to go outside the Western world for people, or postpone retirement to 70 or 75, or use more women in the workforce. In Sweden, we have reached full capacity there, though you have not yet in Ireland."
Such changes in the composition of the workforce would require a major cultural change for managements. "Managers will have to learn how to manage a diversified team, which does not share the same culture."
Managers would have to change their mind-sets, and not assume similarities among people. They would have to communicate in different ways, and always check how they were being understood, she said.
In a speech read by an official for the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, the conference was told the Taoiseach was promoting gender equality in the civil service, which included changing leadership style.
"The militaristic, command and control style of leadership should now be a thing of the past. The new leadership is all about empowerment, communications and participation.
"Men and women tend to have different leadership strengths. It is acknowledged that men are typically more competitive, focused, inventive and willing to take risks.
"Women, on the other hand, are better able to deal with complexity and ambiguity, they emphasise relationships and group working, and can handle many tasks at once."