Fostering The Highest Engagement In A Diverse Workplace
Diversity is among the latest trends thriving and growing in the corporate world. In fact, it is amazing how people with different mindsets, backgrounds, and experiences work together to achieve organizational goals and objectives.
It is fascinating how multifaceted perspectives and personalities blend together to achieve common organizational goals. With greater diversity comes greater value, and a vibrant spectrum of talents.
As an employer, when you choose to integrate diversity, you unfurl new horizons for your business.
You no longer limit yourself to predefined preferences for hiring. You rather look to hire people across linguistic backgrounds or nationalities, and that drives progressive changes in the workplace.
The prowess of diversity is not only limited to the creation of a vibrant work environment. Diversity in the workplace can also drive higher profitability. Harvard Business Review states that diverse organizations have a 70 percent higher chance of capturing new markets. That is surreal, isn’t it?
Besides, as per Glassdoor, 57 percent of employees want their workplaces to be more diverse. To add, 70 percent of job seekers evaluate a company’s take on diversity before applying.
Inclusion and pluralism are hence popular opinions in the workplace, And they speak for the beauty and charm of inclusiveness. They make a business look more appealing, accomplished, and aesthetic.
However, despite all the merits of diversity in the workplace, there are some challenges. The greatest challenge with a diverse workforce is to bring everyone on the same page. Unless a diverse workforce collaborates effectively, engagement and productivity remains low.
Needless to say, you already know how critical employee engagement is to your business.
Companies with engaged employees exhibit greater profitability and stability. Hence, employee engagement is such an imperative concern for all business leaders.
When it comes to diversity in the workplace, employee engagement seems harder than usual. But that is what great leaders do; they have the leadership traits that shine bright in the face of tough, complex situations.
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In this blog, we look at the most effective strategies to achieve the highest levels of engagement in a diverse workforce. The key is to leverage the upsides of diversity and mitigate the potential downsides of it.
You will find some fabulous ways for making that work in the subsequent sections. So, let us delve deeper to explore the worthwhile strategies for engaging a diverse workforce.
Worthwhile Strategies For Actively Engaging A Diverse Workforce
- Look at the Larger Picture of Diversity
To engage employees in a diverse workforce, you first need to understand diversity holistically. You should identify the multifarious verticals of diversity that thrive in your team. We often limit the notion of diversity to multiculturalism or gender diversity.
But the truth is that there is so much more to the concept of diversity. You need to look at it from a much wider purview.
Pluralism also includes the diversity of mindsets, experiences, talents, perceptions, and individualities. Moreover, it includes the sexual orientation that people have, or the learning environments they come for.
Hence, the first step towards engaging a diverse workforce is to identify the dimensions of diversity. Whether you decide to listen to a DEI speaker, read, or simply speak to the members of your team, you’ll gain information on the topic. When you do so, you will be able to curate strategies that are wholesome. A better understanding of diversity will give you more flexibility and better clarity of purpose.
The ultimate objective is not to engage cultures, languages, or nationalities but the minds. Everything that can account for the pluralism of mindsets should be taken into consideration. That will give you your best chance to engage a diverse workforce. This is where it begins!
2. Celebrate Your People
People love it when their individualities are celebrated! Don’t you love it when someone celebrates the person you are? Having said that, celebrating diversity and people who bring uniqueness to the work environment is a great idea.
This means that you should appreciate and recognize their efforts, involvement, consistency, and of course, achievements. When you celebrate your people, it empowers them to come out of their closets and connect with others.
It is possible that an employee from a cultural or religious minority may feel skeptical about their acceptance in the workplace. But when you celebrate their work, birthdays, and individualities, they will feel more comfortable.
They will feel a sense of belongingness, and they will commit themselves better to the organization. When colleagues celebrate with each other, they will be able to bridge their divides and connect. How happy would it make someone if their colleagues treat them like a family!
3. Model Respectfulness
Employee engagement has a direct correlation with employee relationships. If employees share cordial relationships, the engagement levels will be bright/high. On the other hand, workplace conflicts and grudges among employees can bring engagement down.
For a diverse workplace to function well, it is crucial that employees respect each other. In a diverse workplace, gender discrimination, racial abuse, and bullying are common issues. You have to change the scenario by modeling respectfulness for others. That is what democratic leadership is about. You have to lead by example and be a participative leader.
Being the leader in the workplace, you set the tone of conduct and decorum. Your employees will tend to follow how you conduct yourself in the workplace. Having said that, you have to show them the way. You have to respect every sphere of diversity in the workplace and promote the virtues of equality and dignity.
You have to challenge stereotypes and encourage others to bust them. For instance, if you are biased towards a certain ethnic identity in the workplace, you lose the moral right to point out the same behavior in others.
But if you are fair to everyone, employees will learn from it and respect each other’s identity and existence. That is what it takes to build strong working relationships, respect.
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4. Create an Empathetic System to Address Discrimination
As stated above, in a diverse workplace, stereotypes will always exist. Further, these stereotypes will trigger discrimination on various grounds. But you cannot ignore the instances of workplace discrimination. When they go unaddressed for long, they can have devastating impacts.
Workplace discrimination can lead to conflicts, disengagement, and high turnover. In either case, the organization is at a loss. For any business that aims at the highest levels of employee engagement, addressing conflicts is a must.
You need to present yourself as an empathetic leader. Empathy is highly desirable in a workplace that is full of diverse people. As per the State of Workplace Empathy report, 96 percent of employees expect an exhibition of empathy from their leaders. The stakes would be even higher in a diverse workplace.
You have to assure your employees that you value and understand their emotions. You should show compassion such that employees can report discriminatory actions to you. They should believe that you are keen to address all such issues in the best interest of employees.
In the ongoing pandemic, even in general, you need to be more empathetic towards your employees. The global development of the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed havoc on all aspects of human lives.
5. Involve Employees in Decision Making
One important prerequisite for high employee engagement is to make employees feel valued. They should feel a sense of belonging and allegiance towards the company. One effective way of doing this is to involve employees in at least some sort of decision-making.
When they get a platform to express themselves and to share their opinions, they will feel empowered. They will gain the belief that their opinions and perspectives are valuable to the company.
For instance, it may be a decision as small as deciding on a hotel for the annual office party. But everyone’s participation in the process will facilitate active employee engagement.
Such involvement will capture the enthusiasm of employees. Besides, being able to express themselves will also give them a sense of confidence and comfort. This will also give them the impression that the company follows a policy of transparency. Not to forget, transparency is an essential element of high employee engagement.
A study from Harvard Business Review concludes that 70 percent of employees feel that they engage the best when leaders are transparent. So, let employees be a part of the decision-making process and see the progress with your eyes!
6. Leverage Technology
Most businesses are running in the virtual mode in contemporary times, given the pandemic. Thanks to technology, businesses could sustain the setbacks of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Global Workplace Analytics, the number of remote workers has risen by 150 percent since 2015.
Remote jobs are on the rise, and hybrid offices are becoming a trend. Needless to say, a large part of this push is triggered by the pandemic. While remote working has advantages for both employees and employers, collaboration becomes a major challenge.
But for a diverse workforce to engage actively, collaboration is salient. You need to find ways to help your employees collaborate effectively even when they are doing remote work. This is where you can use some state-of-the-art technological innovations to your benefit. You can invest in premium project tracking tools, collaborative software, and communication tools to help your diverse teams collaborate in a worthwhile manner.
Today, the smartest businesses are the ones who are investing in competitive technological advantage. They understand that remote working holds the key to the future.
7. Invest in Skill Development of Employees
In a diverse place, you need to look for innovative opportunities to bring workers on the same page. When you launch skill development training modules or mentoring programs for your employees, you can benefit in multiple ways. On the one hand, it will give you a more skilled workforce.
On the other hand, it gives you a fine chance to give your workers a reason to work together and to collaborate. Here, they will not have to worry about deadlines but learning. It will give them a more conducive environment to learn together, grow together, and evolve together.
Mentorship programs on soft skills, hard skills, and so on will also suit the career advancement plans of employees. In lieu of such opportunities and development prospects, they will commit greater dedication and diligence. Hence, the overall impact of skill development initiatives on employees will be massive.
Learning together and learning from each other will help employees accept diversity. It will enable them to trespass their reservations and collaborate with others for the greater good.
8. Team Building Activities
Leisure and relaxation are as important as diligence and sincerity in work. Leisure time gives employees the chance to manage their stress better and to prevent burnout. So, why not find a way to connect your team via fun and leisure activities?
Everyone can chill together, participate in interesting team activities and grow their bonds over. Even in times of remote working, employees can indulge in online corporate games or activities like virtual coffee breaks.
Connecting for reasons outside work can lead to better bonding between team members. Of course, you can act smart here and team them up on the grounds of inclusion and pluralism. Every team should have a diverse configuration so that the outcomes of such activities are great.
For instance, two employees who don’t work well together in the office may work well together when they are in the same soccer team. Quite possible, isn’t it? That is why team-building activities are so imperative.
In fact, they become even more desirable when you have a diverse workforce. They promote healthy competition and collaboration.
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9. Celebrate Festivals and Customs
Having a diverse workforce implies that you have people from different countries, religions, faiths, and beliefs. When you celebrate days or festivals that are special to your employees, you create an essence of acceptance. So, even if one of your employees has a specific festival on a given day, you should know, and you should at least wish them.
If possible, you should celebrate their festivals or give them an off on that day to celebrate the occasion. For instance, let us say three of your employees practice Islam. Now, if the entire workplace celebrates Eid and everyone dresses in an ethnic way, it will mean so much to those three employees. They will be delighted about the fact that others are celebrating their occasions for their sake.
In this way, you can win the elation, affection, and loyalty of your employees. They will be so glad to be working for an organization that celebrates diversity. These employees will display active levels of engagement driven by their sense of gratitude and emotional attachment to the company.
In this way, by knowing about the special days and customs of your employees, you can upscale employee engagement in a dramatic way. To cite another example, on International Women’s Day, you can let women take the lead or celebrate their contributions. In this way, they will never doubt whether they are in the right place or not. Similarly, you can show your solidarity with LGBT rights. Leveraging diversity demands the celebration of it!
To conclude, engaging a diverse workforce can be tedious but not insurmountable. It will take some outside-the-box thinking to achieve active levels of engagement in a diverse workforce. This creativity reflects in a gushing manner in the above-mentioned strategies for employee engagement. It takes empathy, innovation, exemplary leadership, and creating a sense of belonging to engage workers that come from diverse backgrounds or mindsets.
Above all, it takes a comprehensive understanding of the true essence of diversity and the dimensions of it. Diversity is a progressive change, and organizations should embrace it despite the challenges. As for the challenges, the above strategies are going to work absolutely well!
About Author
Jessica Robinson loves to write interesting and knowledgeable blogs regarding business management, education and life to satiate the curiosity of her lovely readers. Currently, she is serving as a content manager at the ‘Speaking Polymath’. Every piece of content that she writes demonstrates her immense love and passion for her profession.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-robinson10/
Blog: https://assignmenthelp4me.com/thespeakingpolymath
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