Building a diverse workforce

Source:? Forbes

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Creating a diverse workforce is an essential part of competing in today’s fast-moving and global world. However, far from simply a buzzword in corporate memos, diversity provides a series of tangible and strategic benefits that allow a business to adapt to changing circumstances more adequately, expand into new markets and cultivate new avenues of doing business and responding to adversity.

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The following are some of the actionable steps you can take today to encourage a diverse workforce, as well as the benefits that this type of working environment can provide.

1.?????? Take the time to do it right.

Making profound shifts in the makeup of your workforce is not something you can force overnight. You need to spend the time to find the right talent for the proper aspects of your organization, and you need to put people in the places where they can do the most good for your company and their own futures. Conduct a diversity audit of your current practices, find metrics you need to improve and encourage the use of the social and professional networks of your diverse employees to find new candidates.

2.?????? Strengthen relationships and cultivate inclusion.

Better education and an environment that includes all its members is integral to attracting and retaining employees from all walks of life. Team-building exercises, workshops, better education and policies that encourage diverse employees to express their cultures and unique wants and needs are all critical. Learn to both celebrate and support your team’s differences. How this looks and how you can best go about it will depend on both your industry and the people you have working for you.

3.?????? Seek out diversity of thought as much as any other trait.

Diversity of thought is just as crucial to creating a thriving business as the diversity of race, gender, creed and socioeconomic background. So often, a company will focus too heavily on one or two overt qualities and end up with total uniformity in beliefs and viewpoints. A strategic effort toward diversity will ensure that you receive a range of answers when it comes time to offer views and opinions on a topic. This wide range of possible solutions will make you both more agile, as well as more well-rounded as a business.

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Diverse companies have several key advantages over their more homogeneous counterparts.

• Better Ideas, More Innovation: Logically, the more types of people and worldviews you put into a single meeting, the greater the range of solutions you will come out with. Different cultures, backgrounds and beliefs can come together to help you find answers that may not have ever arisen otherwise. As a result, you will better understand your diverse customer base and be able to innovate for them and market to them more effectively.
• Differentiation For Attracting Business: When it comes to hiring the top talent and attracting the best customers and suppliers, demonstrating your diversity can go a long way. Many people want to be a part of an organization they feel is doing good and that respects them personally. The same goes for building a customer base. A more diverse workforce allows you to better interact with your key customers when they are not based in the same location as you. Hiring translators and employees familiar with your target demographic’s unique culture is key to building strong customer relations in new markets.
• Higher Rates Of Productivity: The productivity of a diverse company has been found to be greater than its less diverse counterparts. When diversity reaches upper management, the productivity jumps even higher than less diverse businesses. Aspects like better innovation, better incentives for people to do business with you and a more open and inclusive working space all likely contribute to this boost in productivity and earnings.

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Greater diversity takes effort.

There is both a moral and business incentive to enhance the diversity of your workplace.

Creating greater diversity is a long road, and it requires actions at almost every stage of the hiring and management process to do so correctly. As time goes on, however, a more inclusive workplace and diverse workforce will help manage and perpetuate itself. Of course, the more you invest in this effort, the more return you will see — but it must be genuine and done with total commitment.

Until next week,

James & Sylvia