Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace: It’s Everyone’s Responsibility
A diverse workforce isn’t simply a numbers game focused on how many members of certain groups of people a company employs. It’s about bringing the diverse perspectives, work experiences, life styles and cultures of those groups together to make the company a better place.
Hiring individuals with diverse backgrounds is just a small piece of the puzzle. Organizations truly focused on diversity and inclusion go beyond investing in blanket diversity initiatives and instead work to foster lasting cultural change among their talent. The entire workforce knows they have responsibility for respecting, embracing and building on people’s differences.
In this blog post, 10 Ways Employees Can Support Diversity and Inclusion from Profiles in Diversity Journal, Robin Pidrelli offers several ideas for how employees can help foster true diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She suggests things like starting or joining an employee resource group; organizing diversity-related events; becoming a mentor; actively learning about colleagues’ different cultures, races, religions and backgrounds; and, being sure to treat people in the way THEY want to be treated—not the way YOU want to be treated.
Not only is creating a diverse and inclusive workforce the right thing to do, it’s also been shown to be the best strategy for a company’s success.
First of all, diverse companies are more attractive to new generations of workers. Research from PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that 86% of female and 74% of male millennials take a company’s policies on diversity, equality and inclusion into consideration when deciding whether or not they want to work for them.
In addition, Research continues to demonstrate that companies with a diverse workforce perform better financially. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’18th Annual Global CEO Survey, 85% of the CEOs surveyed said their formal diversity and inclusiveness strategy has improved their bottom line. And, this Credit Suisse report explains that companies with women as board directors, as well as those with lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender employees in senior roles, outperform the companies that lack that diversity.
Another positive outcome of creating diverse workforces is how it engenders more open-mindedness in the mainstream. For people who normally might not get the opportunity to interact with and really get to know people from different ethnic groups, or with a different sexual orientation or global outlook, or with physical or mental disabilities, talent-diverse companies provide a chance to challenge preconceived ideas and prejudices, and help stop discrimination.
Beyond just accepting people’s differences into your existing culture, the focus needs to be on valuing and respecting those differences in order to create a new learning culture—a culture that appreciates differing viewpoints and inspires healthy conflict rather than conformity. If you create an environment where people are comfortable being themselves and are encouraged to voice their opinions, you’ll be able to build a fully contributing workforce.
If you have questions about talent diversity and inclusion, or would like to learn more about the best hiring and recruiting practices, visit TalentCircles.com, call us at 888-280-0808 or email sales@talentcircles.com.
