What is diversity in the workplace?
Diversity in the workplace means hiring a wide range of individuals with various traits and backgrounds. These characteristics can be gender, ethnicity, age, religion, disability, sexuality, language, education, and more. Diversity in the workplace needs to be at all levels, including leadership. Developing a diverse leadership team can inspire current employees to continue to grow within your company and attract top talent when you’re hiring.
What are the different types of diversity?
There are typically two types of diversity that you need to be aware of, internal diversity and external diversity. Internal diversity refers to the traits people are born with, like their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, mental ability, gender identity, cultural identity, and physical ability, to name a few. External diversity describes a person with characteristics that they weren’t born into, and many of these change over time. Examples of external diversity include personal interests, geographical location, familial status, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, citizenship, appearance, education, and previous work history.
Every individual has multiple diverse characteristics that they can add to your company. For example, you could be looking at an applicant who is slightly older than your general employee base and has a physical disability. While some diverse characteristics are easier to spot than others, it’s important to be mindful of diversity and to fill your company with people from many different backgrounds.
What is the difference between diversity and inclusion?
While diversity looks at how individuals have different characteristics, inclusion makes sure that everyone in the workplace feels valued and equal to their peers. Being sure to foster an inclusive workplace allows equal opportunities for employees to succeed. Having an inclusive company means your workplace is free of discrimination. Inclusivity promotes the well-being of employees, which in turn helps create a loyal team who are happy with where they work and support one another. An inclusive workplace can reduce employee turnover and project a positive public image.
What are the top benefits of diversity in the workplace?
Having a diverse workplace will benefit not only your organization but also your employees. The top five benefits to growing a diverse workplace are:
1. Increase profits
You should be working towards growing a diverse workplace for many reasons, but you may not realize the financial benefits. The McKinsey & Company study conducted in 2015 found that companies with an ethnically diverse workforce saw a 35% increase in profits over those who didn’t. A 2018 study found that companies with gender diversity at the leadership level were more likely to outperform their competitors by 21%.
2. Employee satisfaction
Employees who work for a company that values a diverse workplace are more likely to be satisfied in their role and stay with the company long term. In fact, in 2018, McKinsey found that having a diverse and inclusive workplace attracts more top talent. Fostering an inclusive atmosphere inspires employees who are considered diverse or minorities to see themselves in top leadership roles.
3. Reducing employee turnover
It goes without saying that a satisfied and happy employee is less likely to leave your organization for another opportunity. Creating an inclusive atmosphere, especially at the executive level, promotes movement from within, giving employees the opportunity to move upwards and be promoted. Having a diverse workplace encourages employees to gain a better understanding of each other’s differences. This, in turn, reduces employee conflict, which can encourage a more positive environment that employees feel comfortable in.
4. Improving company reputation
Many employees research a company they are applying to before an interview or before accepting a job offer. Having a diverse and inclusive workplace promotes a good reputation for the company. This can be beneficial not just with employee retention and hiring top talent, but also with growing your customer base.
5. Increasing creativity
Having a diverse workplace and giving your employee base a platform to share their ideas means you’ll hear opinions and suggestions from people of different backgrounds. Employees from various ethnicities, cultures, and nationalities can use their experiences to bring new perspectives to a company. This leads to better problem-solving and productivity, and can help the company reach a broader audience. During projects, a diverse team can complete different tasks that they’re best suited to rather than every team member focusing on the same tasks at the same time.
What are the challenges of growing a diverse workplace?
Change often comes with its own challenges. Growing a diverse and inclusive workplace can feel overwhelming, but anticipating the challenges can help ensure success.
Fostering diversity may also require you to meet various types of requirements employees might have. Working with human resources or an HR consultant can help you ensure you create an environment in which all employees feel comfortable expressing their suggestions and opinions.
Another challenge is making sure that all of your employees earn equal pay for equal work. Take time to work with your accounting staff or finance team to review what each employee is paid and work to adjust any pay disparities.
Some organizations find that, as they start to build a diverse workplace, some individuals feel isolated and not included. Providing team-building exercises can help employees get to know each other and find similarities rather than focusing on differences.
Working towards a diverse workplace requires some initiative and can be time consuming at first. But once you have made conscious efforts to build a diverse and inclusive workplace, the company will continue to grow and attract more diverse candidates along the way.
Tips for encouraging diversity in the workplace
When starting to build a diverse workplace, it’s important to involve your entire workplace in the process. Make it known to everyone what you’re doing so they feel like part of the change and can work towards this goal as a team.
It’s also important to create a diversity and inclusion strategy before starting out on your new journey. Part of this strategy will mean identifying existing gaps in your company’s diversity and figuring out ways to fill them. Starting with something simple like adjusting the language in your job descriptions and careers page can be a great place to start. As you work through this process, be sure to have regular check-ins to evaluate how your strategy is working.
When starting your journey towards building a more diverse and inclusive workplace, being prepared is important. With all of the various benefits there are to building a diverse employee base, there is no better time to start than now!
