We Need to be Together to Experience Diversity

Jan Johnson, David Gray, MCR.w, Kate Lister, Rex Miller, Susan

Spiers, Robert Teed, Vik Bangia, MCR, Pay Wu,SLCR, Melissa Fisher, PhD, Erica Hurd, Andrea Robb, Melissa Marsh, Barbara

Greenberg, Sofia Fonseca de Nino, Puja Kapur, Chris Moeller Simon Davis, Mike Petrusky, Ron K. Barger, Sharon G Barrett, Stan Gibson, omar ramirez (He/Him), Jomal McNeal, Peter Baumann, Cristina Herrera, Antonia Cardone Brady Mick, Brigitte

Beltran, MCR.w, SLCR, Bryan Berthold, Jim Rice, Lisa McGregor, MCR.w, Christopher LaPata, MCR, Prosci, Claire Odgers, Suki

Reilly, MCR.w, SLCR, Victor Maningo, Michelle Needles, Beth Moore, Cristina Banks, Jeremy Macdonald, SFP, MCR, LEED-AP, Francisco J. Acoba, James G. Essex, Scott Foster, Marcus Rayner, M. Michelle Cleverdon, Zinaida Charalambous, Charlotte

Timms, Truddy Cheung, @JanJaap Boogard, Robyn Baxter, Lucas Luzzi, Adrienne Grzeskiewicz, Brad Fitch, Molly Fowler, Nicole Clickner, Ron Zappile, Kathy Foster, MCR, Sonya Dufner, FASID, Robert D. Goodman

There are five reasons we need to be back in the office and they have little to do with what employers are saying to encourage people to return. ?The five are focused on what is good for people, not just what is good for employers.?(Which, in the end, are the same).?The intent of this blog series is to 1) help organizations take actions to make their employees work lives better so they can hire and retain the best talent and benefit from their enthusiastic contributions; and 2) inform and enable employees to articulate what they need from their employers and choose to return to the office to get it.

Reason 3: Experiencing Diversity

It’s been more than three years and you now have a pretty sweet set-up for working from home. You’re not at the kitchen table anymore. ?You’ve ironed out the technology kinks.?Your chair is quite comfy. ?You look around and find yourself surrounded by your family and friends.?What’s wrong with this picture?

To be a truly valuable employee, and to advance in your career in this world of constant innovation, we need to be able to continuously develop new and novel approaches and ideas.?One of the main ways to accomplish this is to have our own ideas and perspectives regularly challenged.?We all need to get pushed out of our comfort zones to broaden our perspective and enrich our ideas. ?Sitting at home surrounded by people who look like us, think like us, who have similar backgrounds, education and origin stories as us doesn’t do this. ?But working with people who are different from us does.

The goal is diversity of perspective

Diversity is more than differences in ethnicity and gender. ?A truly diverse workforce includes people from different backgrounds, education, nationalities, generations, thinking styles, religious backgrounds, sexual orientation and abilities and technical skills. ?These differences are the foundation from which new, valuable points of view emerge.

Diversity is good for business

Companies are investing significant effort and resources to develop diverse workforces because they know that diversity is not only good for a functioning society, it’s also good for business.

A recent study (Forbes Insights, January, 2020) showed that companies with an above average workforce diversity produced a greater proportion of their revenue from innovation - about 45 percent.??Companies with below average diversity produced only 26% of their revenue from innovation. ?Diverse interactions broaden thinking, breakdown barriers, create trust and foster empathy.?Diversity drives innovation.

Experiencing diversity is good for people

But diversity is only valuable when it is experienced.?And this experience happens best through immersive, physical presence at the office.?We cannot fully experience the diverse workforce we are all trying to develop without brushing up against it in person. ?This is good for us.?It expands our perspectives and challenges our established ideas, making us more valuable and more promotable employees.

Remote work in some form is here to stay.?But one of its downsides is that people who spend most of their time away from the office do not benefit from in-person interactions with diverse colleagues who have different points of view.?The very real value of remote work must be balanced against the value that is lost when we miss immersive, spontaneous, social and work interactions with colleagues. ???

Organizations who want their employees to come back to the office must make the case that experiencing the diverse workforce they are working to create is good for individuals as they grow their careers by developing their innovation muscles.?

Up next: Building Networks.?