Brussels, 29/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - At the conference bringing together more than 130 business leaders, representatives of the national authorities, social partners and NGOs in Brussels on 29 and 30 November, the Commissioner for Equal Opportunities, Vladimir Spidla, will present the results of a recent European Commission survey entitled "Economic Arguments in Favour of Diversity: Best Practice in the Workplace". The conclusions of this survey, which was paid for by the Community action programme to fight discrimination, and the discussions during the conference, will feed into the preparatory work for the event planned for 2007, the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. Over 800 companies of all sizes took part in this survey, at the beginning of 2005, in which they were asked about their attitudes and policies concerning diversity in the workplace. According to the results of the survey, 83% of European businesses which apply policies in favour of diversity recognise that these policies are commercially viable. The survey reveals, amongst other things: (1) commercial advantages of this type of policy: -according to 42% of the respondents, the major commercial advantage is the reduction in shortages of labour and the ability to recruit- and keep- highly qualified staff; -in the view of 38%, consolidating the reputation and position of the company within the local community is a second advantage; -over 26% of businesses feel that they are improving their creation and innovation capacity; (2) best practice: respondents cite, amongst other things, the fact that they are giving their executives and staff training in the fight against discrimination, creating employee networks representing those living with a disability, homosexuals and ethnic minorities. These best practices also have positive results for businesses, which have managed to bring down staff attrition rates from 25% to less than 7.5% in less than four years, thus achieving considerable savings in recruitment and training costs; (3) main obstacles to the promotion of diversity: a lack of information on practices in terms of diversity and the absence of awareness-raising on these issues (20% of respondents), difficulty in assessing the results (20%) and discriminatory attitudes and behaviour in the workplace (17%). (For information: europa.eu.int/comm/antidiscrimination).