The basis of the MIA-award is based on three principles focusing on rights, resources and results. Put together these principles become an elaborate image of the ideal work place. A work place where there is a determined and systematic leadership to ensure that everybody is appreciated and motivated to use all individual and unique resources for the common good. Of course regardless of gender, ethnic origin, religion, age, disability and sexual orientation.

The three principles serve as guidelines for companies when developing and implementing diversity management. In short, the principles tell companies that they can benefit from diversity only when they make sure that there is no discrimination (ensuring rights), when all differences are seen as resources for innovation and growth (using resources), and lastly when the diversity strategy is a long-termed and results oriented process, including both minorities and target groups.

In the competition for the MIA-award these three principles serve as transparent criterias for pointing out the winners as those with excellent performance in one or more of the principles. Below you can read more on each of the three principles.

 
1. The Principle of Rights

Ensure equal opportunities and prevent discrimination for all employees in all phases of their employment.
According to EU and the Danish legislation, discrimination is illegal. This discrimination on grounds of gender, ethnicity, religion, age, disability and sexual orientation may not take place on the workplace. Indeed the worst enemy of diversity is discrimination and inequality. In order for any company - public or private - to harvest the fruits of diversity, discrimination and harassment must be combated and erradicated. It is important to remember, that discrimination often takes place hidden in the shadows and that you should never rely on the victims to defend themselves. Instead it is the management's responsibility to prevent discrimination in the workplace.

The securing of equal opportunities must also be directed at all phases of employment. This concerns recruitment, selection, training, education, wages, tasks, leave, promotion, flexibility regarding family life, influence and dismissal. If some privileges are reserved for certain groups while others are deprived, the enterprise will not get everybody’s full commitment but only harvest envy and anger.

2. The Principle of Ressources

Make diversity a resource in every aspect of the workplace's actions.

Each and every human being is unique and has resources that can contribute to the common good. The point is to use these resources. As individuals we are different through our affiliations with various identity groups. We all have a gender, an ethnicity, an age, a risk of becoming disabled, a sexual orientation, and a relation to religion. But likewise we each have our own life story including a wide range of individual experiences. The core of diversity management is to make diversity a resource and a mutual asset, be it within sales, marketing, product development, service, or working climate in general. It is about actively including that knowledge, those perspectives and particular life experiences that the individual employee brings to the work place.

3.  The Principle of Results

Ensure a result oriented diversity process that includes both minority and target groups in strategy.

To ensure that your strategy for diversity management has the desired effect, it is imperative that you formulate your goals, how to reach them, and plans of evaluation. In other words, diversity should always be a long-termed strategic process, with a constant eye on the development of the organisational framework and working place culture, in order to sustain an inclusive organisation with equal opportunities for all.

It is the management’s responsibility to engage in preventing discrimination and promoting diversity. Indeed this is no easy task. Diversity is a path through barriers and resistance, and some employees or even leaders will feel that some privileges are taken from them in the process of granting everybody equal opportunities. To minimize resistance it is decisive to include the employees, the trade organizations, and not least the special target groups and minorities as participants in the development and implementation of diversity management. The participative approach is decisive to secure a mutual understanding that diversity management is for all members of the company.