Starting September 2019, HEKS/EPER Romania Foundation is implementing HOPE – Promoting non-discrimination in social housing and post-employment for Roma project, in partnership with the Resource Center for Roma Communities.
The project’s objectives are: fighting post-employment discrimination of Roma and supporting their inclusion at the workplace, supporting local authorities in implementing existing anti-discrimination legislation and policies for Roma inclusion in the field of housing and facilitating efforts to better inform Roma of their rights and for accessing social housing.
In September-December 2019, collaboration agreements were signed with nine companies from Cluj and Bihor counties. The activity fields of the companies are diverse: cables, food industry – restaurant, collecting, sorting and recycling waste, furniture.
A questionnaire on Roma inclusion at the workplace was developed. The questionnaire has three sections: one for HR personnel, one for middle management (e.g. shift managers) and one for employees (Roma and non-Roma). A total of 296 questionnaires were applied in the nine companies: 222 were completed by employees, 64 by middle management and 10 by HR personnel. The report based on the collected data will present information regarding the personnel’s retention rate, possible reasons for a low retention rate of Roma employees, interactions between co-workers and with management inside the companies.