It is important to prioritize diversity and inclusion when building your workforce’s dream team. Hiring a diverse workforce has many benefits that will improve your bottom line, positively impacting many parts of your organization. Make changes to your policies and show that you really care about diversity in the workplace to reap the benefits that diversity can bring to your workforce.
What Is a Diverse Workforce?
Workforce diversity brings many people from all walks of life together. People of different backgrounds, races, gender, ability levels, and life stages come together to create a diverse workforce with many unique perspectives. This is a workforce that will truly be able to work together in order to solve problems, increase productivity, and make everyone feel welcome.
There are many types of workplace diversity, but three of the most common are:
- Cognitive Diversity: The workforce brings different techniques to the problem-solving process to accomplish company goals.
- Lifestyle Diversity: The experiences employees have had outside of work affect how they think and behave in the office.
- Brand Diversity: Companies attract diverse employees by being open about their diversity practices and commitments.
Benefits of a Diverse Workforce
Diversity brings many benefits to the workplace, whether they be mental or physical. Here are just a few of those benefits.
- Increased Productivity
Diverse workforces are more productive as they have more input from different backgrounds in order to find the best possible solutions. Workplace diversity is also known to make employees happier to be at work, which often leads to them doing their job better.
- Increased Revenue
With increased productivity comes increased revenue. One report by McKinsey & Company proved that companies with a diverse board of directors were 43% more profitable than companies with a non-diverse board of directors. These diverse teams work hard and efficiently leading to higher profits for the entire company.
- New Perspectives in the Office
There are many ways to solve the same problem. Each diverse individual will be able to bring a different solution depending on their life experience. Hearing many options will make it easier for the team to decide how to create the best possible solution.
- Increased Comfort for All Employees
Being the oddball of a group can be hard. Workers will feel more comfortable when there are other employees that look like them. Diverse companies are less likely to make particular employees feel like they are the odd one out or are being discriminated against. Companies that value diversity tend to also have low turnover rates.
Challenges of Creating A Diverse Workplace
It takes work to create a diverse workforce and sometimes, changing policies and procedures. Here are some of the common challenges of creating a diverse workplace.
- Implementing Diverse Practices
Doing too much overnight to make your workforce inclusive can make you look performative or create miscommunication. Think your policies through before making changes and approach the topic of diversity with care.
- Training Management
Train your management about the importance of diversity. This is the first step into integrating the importance of diversity into your business as a whole. Make sure to put time on your calendar to make sure they understand the concepts and can practice diversity through their work.
- Unconscious Bias
Biases can unconsciously be slipped into your company’s hiring process and/or day-to-day interactions. Make sure your team is aware of these biases and how they may subtly be making their coworkers uncomfortable without realizing it.
Focusing on diversity within your company creates room for your company to flourish. This will foster productivity, innovation, and comfort within your team.
