Challenging Diversity: Encouraging Inclusion Within the Business Sector

Many people perceive diversity as a box-ticking exercise by organisations that is used to promote fairness and equality. You will already be familiar with the term diversity; you may have seen it in the many job advertisements published in newspapers and websites, but the benefits are very real and far-reaching.

Diversity holds many different characteristics under its umbrella. The most talked about are race, ethnicity, disability, gender and sexual orientation, but there is far more to diversity. Diversity is about inclusivity no matter where you are from or your life experiences; it is about being employed and valued for what you can bring to the table in terms of the skills that you hold and nothing more.

How can you play your part in encouraging and developing inclusion in the workplace?

Recruitment

By having a strong diversity policy in place, you can reach and attract a greater talent pool. Partner your recruitment process with diversity organisations to ensure that your applicants come from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances. A recent survey by PwC found that 54% of women and 45% of men said they researched whether a company had diversity policies before they accepted a position for a role.

Diversity Training

Training is an essential tool for changing your workplace culture. You need to ensure that inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated even if a complaint has not been made official. Diversity and anti-bias training can make a significant impact on workplace culture.

Flexibility

Workplaces are moving away from the traditional office scenario and providing employees with more flexible working conditions. Advances in technology mean that people no longer are restrained by the 9-5 office-based mentality, while the cloud means that people can work flexibly and remotely from anywhere with internet connection. It also means that you don’t have to fund another space in your traditional office, in fact using a shared space that can be accessed on a part-time basis such as The Brew could negate the need for you to have a central office at all.

Diversity is not just about benefiting the employee; organisations that are diverse have been found to be more successful than their competitors. Diversity is an important strategy within the business sector to ensure success. Here are three ways that diversity benefit businesses:

• Customer engagement

One of the most compelling reasons for a business to promote diversity is to help them understand the customers and communities that they serve. Diversity helps businesses represent their customers across all demographics to boost company performance.

• Innovation

A strong homogenous workplace culture stifles creativity. The shared experiences, education and skills limit the potential for innovation and creativity, but a diverse team is more likely to generate fresh new ideas that appeal to a wider audience

• Problem-solving

A team that is cognitively diverse can problem solve at a faster rate than teams that are populated by similar people. When teams feature people who have a comparable background, they approach problems in a similar way and so solutions are slower to be recognised.

Diversity is less to do with differences than about being inclusive. We live in a world that is more transparent and accessible than ever before, and it is important that these values into the workplace.