“D&I needs to be something that every single employee at the company has a stake in.” — Bo Young Lee
Diversity and inclusion, commonly known as D&I, are amongst the most discussed topics in the workplace.
Strategies to hire inclusive and diverse talents in your organization can help increase the company’s growth. Many big-shot companies have started implementing diversity into their organization and are already reaping its fruits in recent years.
Workplace diversity enhances creativity as well as boosts a company’s reputation in the marketplace.
There are a lot of benefits of workplace diversity you can see. Let’s take a look at it.
People are blessed with unique characteristics like their gender, race, ethnicity, caste, religion, etc. These special points make people different from one another, even in the workplace.
Nowadays, diversity hiring takes place in the workforce a lot more often. It refers to the hiring of people with unique characteristics.
Diversity is not limited to only one type. Let’s take a look at it.
Some diversities can be internal and not seen by the world, while others are external and easily accessible.
Below are the different types of diversity in the workplace:
Internal diversities are diversities a person is born with and has no control over changing it.
These factors include – race, age, ethnicity, national origin, and cultural diversity.
External diversities include characteristics people are not born with. They can, however, modify or change it as per their wish.
These diversities include – education, skills, religion, geographic location, socioeconomic status, citizenship, and experiences.
Diversity factors that arise in a workplace are called organizational diversity.
These include – job functions, job location, work department, management status, and level of seniority.
As the word suggests, world view diversity is the diverse difference in people’s views on the world. Your opinions on the world can change according to your experience, knowledge, history, etc.
World view diversity includes – political beliefs, knowledge of history, and cultural events.
Here are the top 8 benefits of diversity in the workplace:
Higher employee engagement is the ultimate dream for any organization.
Diversity makes a person feel included in a company. This increases their engagement at the workplace.
It becomes a win-win situation for both – the employer and the employee.
Employees will participate in more activities when they start feeling included, which will positively affect the company.
When people with different backgrounds collaborate, different ideas come into play.
People with different cultural backgrounds are bound to bring various experiences and beliefs with them.
This brings various ideas into the workplace and increases innovation. Fresh ideas are introduced, and creative solutions are found.
Increased employee engagement will eventually lead to an increase in employee retention rate, which will, in turn, increase the revenue and profits of a company.
This is the most crucial benefit of diversity in the workplace.
If your employee feels like he is heard in the workplace, they are more likely to bring their point of view to the table. This will benefit the company as they will have the privilege to listen to different perspectives and ideas.
Different opinions will open the doors for better decision-making opportunities.
Employee turnover is a huge deal, and getting your employees to stay in your company takes considerable effort.
It is evident that when your employees are happy, they are more likely to stay in your organization.
A huge benefit of diversity in your workplace you can think of is an increase in the retention rate.
Your company’s brand identity enhances when you have an inclusive and diverse workplace.
With the rise of current global events, diversity has become a major issue. Incorporating diversity and inclusion policies is a wise decision to boost your company’s reputation.
Your company gets better at handling the global marketplace with a diverse workforce available.
A diverse culture at your workplace allows your organization to expand communication. For example, if you are dealing with a client from China, a person who speaks Mandarin will improve workplace relations.
Promoting positive messages, like an inclusive workplace, sends a good reputation in the marketplace.
The company’s reputation increases in the market, and people will more likely be willing to work.
Many companies strive for diversity. But how can one understand it is there? More often than not, companies tend to calculate gender ratio representation, ethnicity representation, etc. But it does not prove diversity and inclusion. It only tracks numbers.
Furthermore, this does not help to eliminate unconscious bias, which of often the result of statements like “traditionally very male-dominated industries.”
For instance, the crypto field is developing at a crazy scale right now. It has created many job opportunities, with the share of crypto jobs rising by 1,457% compared to the previous four years.
In fact, the most progressive and fast-growing sphere suffers from considerable gender diversity problems. Thus, according to McKinsey study, 64% of financial services C-suite executives are white men, and 23% of them are white women, while the technology space gap is even worth – only 24% of tech crypto jobs are held by women, as crypto space was born from finance and technology, being two “traditionally very male-dominated industries.”
Recruiting for a cultural fit may be one of the recruiters’ biggest mistakes. One cannot reach diversity by fishing for the ‘right’ candidates or imposing quotas. Such a way will not lead to a successful, diverse team.
It rather requires a company to be open and welcome candidates of various ages, gender, religions, and backgrounds, focusing on their skills and strengths. Some companies conduct pre-employment psychometric assessments that allow them to evaluate the candidate’s character traits and determine their suitability for a particular position.
While many are trying hard to implement and create diversity, 41% of managers claim they have no time to implement diversity and inclusion programs. But, this time is well worth it, as the survey shows that around 85% of CEOs having diverse cultures report an increase in profit.
Diversity recruiting is about flexibility and clear-cut processes. It may be hard to keep all team members in the loop and help eliminate bias on various hiring levels, but a few things will make it more convenient. First and foremost, it is helpful to use special hiring tech tools that can help ease the process and allow working locally or remotely. These tools can also help create a good experience for prospective candidates.
Diversity job boards will offer a wider choice of candidates from around the globe. Various tech solutions such as Textio, Bryq, and Criteria can help you make a pool of diverse candidates to work with. Some tools can automate blind hiring and helps screen candidates, and create the same interview structure for all candidates to ensure they have the same questions.
Even though DEI is becoming widespread, not all companies take it seriously enough to make it a part of their core values and hold accountability for the DEI goals they put. These goals must be relevant to make it happen. Around 75% of companies still treat DEI as a compliance issue, not including it in their leadership development programs.
DEI should be implemented in the company’s culture. Companies should talk to their employees and candidates to find out what can be changed and improved in diversity hiring. It is also a good idea to educate team members at every level on why representation is beneficial. Reviewing the company’s job ads for language that may turn off prospective candidates from a certain group may help boost diverse candidates’ application flow.
Remote job opportunities are helping companies hire from all around the world and even out representation from some underrepresented communities. Together with that, remote hiring has shown that candidates are less likely to work for a company that doesn’t respect their workers, mistreats them, and does not offer equal opportunities, as well as value work-life balance. Thus, 79% of employees who quit reported the reason to be the lack of appreciation at their workplace.
Creating a positive work environment and workplace culture is a key to diversity boost. With the rising demand for diversity both from customers’ and employees’ sides, companies should focus on inclusion and providing fair and equal opportunities for everybody. Companies should also offer and focus on their employees’ development, providing them space to do so.
Often, companies use the ‘pipeline myth’ to excuse why DEI programs have no desired success. Experts maintain that not the lack of talent is a problem but rather how you create a talent pool and access it and how companies can engage and connect with that talent.
Companies may find talent, but the hiring criteria just don’t allow them to enter because the particular experience or skills are not present. Companies could enable more talent by lowering the entry-level standards and clarifying what skills are a must-have, what are nice to have, and what can be acquired while working.
Believe it or not, minorities, women, or people with disabilities often decide not to apply for a position right after reading a job description. The matter is that the language used to describe the position may send the wrong message to a potential applicant.
The way phrase a job description plays a pivotal role in the future success of the hiring process. A few stereotypical adjectives or nous strongly associated with masculine positions can ruin the candidates` expectations.
As the key point of a job description is to encourage a diverse group of people to apply, the choice of language and words should be accurate and neutral. This simple action will help to promote applicant diversity.
According to a recent survey by HiringSolved, only 5% of companies have a documented diversity strategy for which recruiting teams are held accountable. While 61% of employees believe diversity and inclusion strategies are beneficial and essential.
For many business leaders, compiling goals and strategies seem to be another tedious task for their HR teams, which will result in anything but another company paper. However, it is next to impossible to hire an efficient and successful team not knowing what its team members actually look like.
Often, companies restrain themselves from hiring more diverse candidates by sourcing talents from the same pool every time. Therefore, seeking out fresh talent pools is vital if your sources seem to produce homogeneous applications.
While 76% of hiring managers regard attracting top talent as their greatest challenge, it is even more challenging to diversify the workforce using the same channels, even without noticing the problem. Thus, the more sources you use to source candidates, the easier it will be to diversify beyond a single metric.
Unfortunately, numerous hiring managers and HR team members suffer from a misconception that diversity relates solely to race and gender. However, diversity touches on a much wider spectrum of variables:
Educational background
Religious beliefs
Disabilities
Sexual orientation and gender issues
Thus, according to Glassdoor, 61% of U.S. employees have experienced or witnessed discrimination based on age, race, gender, or sexual orientation. 45.5% of LGBT workers have experienced unfair treatment at work, while 24% of Black and 24% of Hispanic employees in the U.S. have experienced discrimination over the last year.
10 effective ways to improve diversity and inclusion in the workplace:
If your company fails to acknowledge diversity and inclusion in the workplace, you risk your valuable employees’ alienation.
Diversity not only increases employee engagement but also increases employee retention rates.
The inclusive workplace model makes people feel valued at the workplace, and they are more likely to participate in different activities in the company actively.
The top management level of your company is the mirror of your workforce. Having a team of executives that portray diversity and inclusion is therefore essential.
An inclusive culture brings in the benefit of great engagement and retention rates for your organization.
Acknowledging and honouring multiple religious and cultural practices in your company will make your employees feel valued. You can do so by observing holidays on specific dates related to their religious sentiments.
It is vital to foster a company culture where every employee’s voice is heard, and their opinions are valued.
Often employees feel the need to quit their job as they feel less valued in the company. You need to develop a platform for your employees to express their opinions.
The gender pay gap has been a widely talked about phenomenon in the world.
Having transparent communication with your employees about gender pay inequalities is the best way to hear their side and avoid miscommunication.
Adopting the diversity recruitment strategy at your workplace enables and ensures a working environment with a mixture of multiple languages and cultures.
Taking someone’s language barrier into account is the best way to make them feel included.
Diverse hiring welcomes diverse thinking into the workplace. Various viewpoints from people with different backgrounds are exchanged.
This enhances the workforce and enables growth.
Creating a work environment where knowledge is acknowledged from different generations is a plus point for you.
While making the workforce generation inclusive, make sure you understand the generation gap caused by tech-savy tools.
You need to employ policies that are anti-discriminatory and inclusive.
A tailored approach must be used to get rid of any discrimination in the workplace.
The hiring process has been filled with unconscious racism and ageism on a lot of occasions. If you keep ignoring this aspect, your company’s reputation may get affected negatively.
Eliminating unconscious discriminating processes need to be taken action immediately.
We understand that a diverse and inclusive workforce needs to have a well-thought hiring process behind it.
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