Are you one of those managers or team leaders who don’t believe that diversity in the workplace is a good thing? According to Forbes, diversity allows your company to have a wider range of talent, and not just talent that that is familiar to certain ethnicity or other restriction definition. Diversity offers insight into the needs and motivations of all your clients/ customers- not just a part of it.
Research also shows that diversity in the workplace promotes efficiency and productivity. However, implementing it is far difficult than anticipated but as you read, you’ll learn how to promote diversity in the workplace.
The Importance of Diversity in the Workplace for Companies
Before we dive into ways we can promote diversity in the workplace, what really are the benefits it brings? Because for something to be continued, it must bring some sort of value.
A diverse workplace is one that has employees from different backgrounds; cultures, perspectives, genders, age, ethnicities, race, and other characteristics. Here are a 3 reasons for promoting diversity in the workplace:
1. It Attracts Talent
If your organization promotes diversity, people would want to be part of it. A work culture that accepts a range of backgrounds and the different ideas and differences will attract talent both local and foreign.
According to Glassdoor survey, approximately 67% of workers that were surveyed say diversity is an important consideration in recruitment. This basically means that if you are not promoting diversity, you’re probably missing out on talented candidates.
2. It Retains Talent
No manager wants to lose their best staff or any productive staff at all. Reducing employee turnover is vital towards the growth of any business or organization. When you replace employees, you spend resources and time on hiring and in the onboarding process of the newly hired employees.
However, when you recognize the minority groups on your staff pool and celebrate or orchestrate awareness events that promote diversity, your employees feel more involved and increases their satisfaction and motivation. This way you retain talent while still attracting more talent.
>> Recommended reading: Global trends in talent management
3. It Increases Motivation
Recruitment International advises that a diverse workplace helps promote relationship between employees. This way, they share a common objective and work towards achieving that objective which in turn increases staff morale.
A workplace where motivation is high is a happy workplace. All of which promotes productivity. High staff morale encourages employees to work hard and be focused on their given tasks.
>> Recommended reading: Leadership and Motivation: 7 trends
Companies that Encourage Diversity
Diverse organizations always perform better and it’s a fact! Let’s take a look at some companies that promote diversity in the workplace and how it has helped them get to where they are today.
Johnson & Johnson
They are into the medical industry; production of medical devices, pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods. This company has an employee approximate of over 127,000 worldwide. J&J has invested a lot of money in ensuring all employees create an inclusive environment.
They have employee resource groups, mentoring programs and a Diversity university that creates awareness and help their staff understand the benefits of working collaboratively regardless of background differences.
Mastercard
This company is involved in offering digital financial solutions and services. They have an employee worldwide count of over 10,300 workers. Mastercard believes that diversity helps drive better insights, make better decisions and better products.
They promote diversity in their workplace by ensuing the older staff are more active on social media and address topics that promotes diversity i.e. generational barriers.
Disney
This entertainment industry is said to be the happiest place on earth which may be true but it is also one of the most diverse places to work. Disney is built on storytelling that entertains enlightens and inspired different families across the globe.
They also recognize diversity and inclusions as fundamentals for the success of their organization. Disney set up the Global Workplace and Women’s Initiative to ensure women have more opportunities. This organization also successfully ensured that more Latinos were promoted.
3 Tips to Promote Workplace Diversity
Learning why diversity in the workplace is important and seeing examples of companies who encourage diversity is not just enough. Let’s take a look on how they promote diversity.
1. Establish Task Forces
To completely eliminate discrimination and promote diversity in the workplace, you can establish diversity task forces in your organization. These task forces should focus on a particular are each; disability, age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and other characteristics pertinent to your organization.
Identify the various groups in your organization and deploy task forces to ensure diversity is promoted in these groups. According to Chron, this strategy has proven to work as it helped increase IBM’s service revenue by $290 million within a space of three years.
3. Diverse Policies
Develop and implement policies that are diverse-friendly. An example of a diverse-friendly policy is providing flexible working hours and having on-site childcare which would encourage young women and mothers to work.
Also, recognizing religious holidays will help you attract talent and have a more religiously diverse workforce. The idea is to implement policies that attracts and promote diversity for all minority groups.
4. Recruitment and Promotion
While you are recruiting and promoting employees, you should incorporate diversity as you do so. Develop standards for these processes that are based on merit and not quotas.
Ensure that your policies are transparent so that your employees and potential employees see your company as one that appreciates hard work based on ability and merit. Policies that promotes equal treatment for all should be created and implemented.
>>Recommended reading: Team management: how your company can be feminist
In Conclusion
Diversity in the workplace makes a good business a great one. When you can understand the differences of people from different backgrounds and get them to exchange their ideas and work in unity, there’s no limit to what they can achieve.
Use the aforementioned tips to implement and promote diversity in the workplace.
As you are seeking for a diverse workplace, you may also think it is important to control the productivity of your team – so you can measure the diversity impact In you company. Runrun.it is a time tracking software, which has several management features, like a Dashboard where you have data in real time, an automatized timesheet, managerial reports and more! Test it for free: www.runrun.it.
