Work Package 3
Univeristy of Helsinki
Multiplicity of Cultures, Skills, and Inclusion in Care and IT Work
In Work Package 3, the University of Helsinki examines how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are understood, enacted, and experienced in everyday work across the care and IT sectors. WP3 focuses on the alignment, and misalignment, between employers’, managers’, and workers’ perceptions of skills, DEI ideals, and inclusion practices, paying particular attention to how these dynamics shape the working lives of migrant and native employees in increasingly diverse and technologically mediated workplaces.
WP3 investigates how foundational workplace skills, technical, social, and DEI-related, are defined, recognized, and valued across organizational hierarchies and occupational roles. It asks how DEI is conceptualized as a skill in practice, how intersectional positions related to gender, age, race, ethnicity, class, and migration status shape everyday work experiences, and where “blind spots” emerge that hinder inclusive, work-friendly environments. By linking intersectionality with capability-based approaches, WP3 advances understanding of how inequalities are reproduced or challenged through routine interactions, team dynamics, and managerial practices.
Using a mixed-methods design, WP3 combines in-depth qualitative interviews with migrant and native workers, managers, and supervisors in care and IT with the development and validation of new DEI skill constructs. These insights are further explored through innovative AI-based Digital TeamTwins simulations that model real-time team interactions and reveal hidden mismatches, biases, and tensions in multicultural and multigenerational teams. This approach allows WP3 to move beyond static accounts of inclusion and capture the dynamic, relational processes through which skills, values, and belonging are negotiated at work.
Throughout, WP3 foregrounds DEI as a learnable, relational, and scalable skill set that operates at individual, team, and organizational levels. Its findings feed into the co-design of AI-supported diagnostic and development tools, evidence-based guidance for employers and social partners, and cross-sectoral learning on inclusive skill recognition and team collaboration. By making visible the often-invisible dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, WP3 advances TAIMI’s systemic goal of building fairer, more resilient, and more inclusive workplaces in Finland’s transforming labour market.
Meet the Team
Leader
Email: markku.sippola@helsinki.fi
Univeristy Researcher
Email: shahnaj.begum@helsinki.fi
Doctoral Researcher
Email: wanying.yan@helsinki.fi
Work Package 3 Activities
