Why Is Diversity in the Workplace Important?
Learn how to promote diversity in your business!
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The lack of gender, racial and ethnic diversity in the workplace is a common issue worldwide. Women, non-whites, and minorities are under-represented in executive leadership positions in several countries.
With the economic and social rise, political minorities started to demand their places in different business niches. Customers are also beginning to see the need of demanding from their favorite brands an inclusion that goes beyond social marketing.
Thus, it’s important to know more about the importance of diversity in the workplace, its benefits, and how to properly implement it.
To familiarize yourself with this subject, read this article to the end. Let’s get started!
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What is diversity in the workplace?
The arrival of women to the job market and the social and economic rise of minority ethnic groups are recent events that begin to change corporate environments.
Therefore, we can say that diversity in the workplace is a corporate policy in which the hiring and retaining of talent focuses on plurality among employees.
In addition to gender and racial diversity, companies are also starting to take the inclusion of religious, sexual, disabled, and elderly people into account.
Why is it worth having diversity in the workplace?
Consumer behavior has changed and the new generations are increasingly aware of the social responsibility of the brands they consume.
In addition, studies indicate that diversity in a business increases productivity, brings better results, and facilitates the creation of a healthier and more empathetic organizational environment.
Learn more about the main benefits of investing in a diversity policy for your business.
1. Makes the environment prone to innovation
Groups formed by similar individuals with similar life experiences are usually creatively limited.
Heterogeneous teams, on the other hand, are forced to deal with different perspectives on the same subject, which favors innovation and achieving results unlike those found in homogenous groups.
If you believe this plurality might make the group’s interaction more difficult, you’re in for a surprise!
Respect for diversity only occurs when you are in direct contact with it. Making it possible for people to mingle with others who are different from them stimulates one’s ability to listen to others and favors more empathetic exchanges.
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2. Improves the business’ image
The new generations are increasingly more concerned with issues related to sustainability and human rights. Having a diverse team allows products and services to be delivered, taking into account such aspects that are relevant to the audience.
In addition, the business’ improved image doesn’t occur only with consumers. Diversity in the workplace policy can also be a strategy for capturing talent with values that are the same as your organization’s values.
3. Facilitates communication transparency
Let’s suppose that your business intends to run an inclusive Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day campaign. The people featured are not limited to the standards usually used in advertising and we see black, overweight, and LGBT actors, for example.
If you intend to communicate with niche groups, you need it to go beyond social marketing and show it in practice.
Diversity policies can increase a business’s profits, but it needs to be done with some truth involved to prevent it from backfiring and ending up creating a crisis or any other type of negative repercussion.
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How to have a diversity in the workplace policy at your business?
Now that you know what it’s about and understand the advantage of diversity in businesses, check out three simple and practical tips on how to adopt it.
Invest in technology for your selection processes
Some time ago, there was a viral riddle: it described the story of a child who had suffered an accident with his father. Both needed to be taken to the hospital and “the most competent person” there needed to perform the emergency surgery on their own child.
The purpose was to find out who this professional might be and many people thought that it might be a gay couple. Why is it so hard to assume that the most competent person was a woman and the child’s mother?
This happens because of an unconscious bias. It is responsible for the small prejudices we carry with us, many times involuntarily.
Adopted technology in selection processes makes hiring isonomic and free of possible prejudgments. Thus, the recruiting and selection processes become consistent with the desired professional profile.
Invest in employee training
Developing cultural programs, lectures, and courses that show the importance of diversity in the workplace help improve engagement among employees as well as turn them into agents of organizational transformation.
After all, as we said earlier, you can’t respect diversity if you don’t know it.
Monitor the organizational environment
There’s no use in having a diversity policy, promoting this to attract talent, and using social marketing to promote yourself if you don’t monitor the effectiveness of this strategy in your company’s daily activities.
You need to properly manage people, create satisfaction metrics and receive constant feedback to ensure that minorities are truly welcome and heard.
What have you learned so far about diversity in the workplace?
Diversity in the workplace provides internal and external advantages for a business. As a policy, this practice is still recent, but we can already see a few changes.
With the proper strategy and constant monitoring, it is possible to ensure that diversity stops being simply theoretical and is applied in practice, providing as many benefits as possible to the business.
To continue reading about this subject, also check out ways to improve your company’s climate.
