HRM Practices in South Africa: Diversity and Inclusion in Contemporary and Future Workplaces

Human resource management (HRM) is changing rapidly in the world of work. HRM is also changing rapidly in South Africa; however, South Africa is a unique and extraordinary example in many ways: based on South Africa’s extended history of segregation, the workplace situation at the micro, meso, and macro levels is still determined by the exclusion of and inequality towards people of different cultural groups and origins. For this reason, discourses on equality, diversity, and inclusion have become extremely relevant in organisations and contemporary South African society. This chapter presents insights into the state-of-the-art HRM practices in South Africa with special regard to diversity management and the management of evolving workplaces. It uses an intersectional, reflective HRM approach and presents empirical findings from a qualitative study conducted in the German-South African Engineering industry. The aim of this chapter is to provide insights into HRM practices in South Africa, the relevance of diversity management, and aspects of the creation of new work in contemporary and future workplaces.