Fridae

Workplace diversity has been gaining more and more attention from companies and HR departments all across the globe. Put simply, diversity in the workplace means giving people an equal chance of employment regardless of their gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or other factors that are not related to work performance. Fostering diversity is not only the morally correct thing to do, it also benefits businesses in several ways.

Research has shown that companies with a diverse team of employees perform better than more homogeneously staffed businesses as they have access to a greater source of talent and can gain more informative insights from their diverse teams.

This article will explain the benefits of workplace diversity to demonstrate how important it is for companies to focus on building a diverse team.

Diversity Gives You Access To a Much Larger Talent Pool

The first benefit of hiring a diverse team of employees is that it gives businesses access to a significantly larger pool of talent. For instance, companies that look to hire male candidates only are missing out on half of the population. Understandably, companies need to be selective with their hiring, but discounting qualified candidates based on race or gender is incredibly limiting. These days, people want to get to know colleagues from different walks of life to broaden their horizons and diversify their friendship groups and so it is hard to attract the top talent if you are not taking steps to create a diverse workforce.

Diversity Gives Your Company A Boost in Reputation

Diversity in the workplace is now expected and any company that is dragging its feet on inclusive hiring is not a popular company amongst customers these days. In this modern age, a reputation can make or break a business as anyone can look up a company online now. Because of this, branding has become increasingly vital and if a business is outed as being discriminatory, it can kill their chances of success.

Practicing equality in hiring and creating a friendly, diverse working environment is crucial for businesses. Diversity helps businesses connect to local communities which in turn fosters better relationships with customers. Companies can gain a broader understanding of their customers if their teams consist of people with diverse experiences, and will be able to engage with new customer bases.

Diversity Gives Your Company Advantages in Expanding and Entering New Markets

Having a diverse team with employees from different ethnic backgrounds that speak various languages will be a huge advantage for companies who are looking to expand their business. Whether you are looking to improve your business operations on an international, local, or regional level, your diverse team can give you more cultural insights, and insightful knowledge of the local market.

On a global scale, business is conducted differently and depends largely on cultural contexts. It is not enough to just have a translation service to be successful in international business. You need to have a good understanding of the business culture in other countries and the easiest way to do that is by hiring employees from different national and ethnic backgrounds. Therefore, if you are looking to operate more efficiently and grow your business to a larger scale, consider hiring people from different cultures that have different experiences and language abilities.

Diversity in the Workforce Gives You More Creativity

Companies that only employ people with similar backgrounds and experiences will have less creativity in their work as employees with similar life experiences will have similar ideas. Many case studies have shown that working groups with more diversity tend to have more creative and innovative ideas. People from groups with diverse backgrounds can offer unique insights and comments on proposed ideas, which results in better solutions and more rounded business decisions.

Diversity Helps Businesses Increase Profits

As diversity drives creativity, productivity levels are also raised due to better business solutions and business ideas. As a result, companies with a clear diversity plan yield more profits. According to a study of public companies in the U.S., companies with diverse executive boards perform better than companies with homogeneous boards. Moreover, another study in 2015 also found that companies with ethnic diversity in management boards were 35 percent more likely to earn financial profits above the average of their industry. Clearly, diversity has a hugely positive effect on the profitability of every type of business.

It is so important for organizations and businesses to build a diverse workforce that includes people of all genders, ages, ethnicities, and religions. Businesses that understand how important diversity is in a workplace will always have an advantage over their less diverse counterparts. We are living in a global world and modern businesses can only succeed by reflecting this.