Not only is diversity highly important when it comes to creating a workplace environment that is welcoming, accepting, and accommodating for people from all walks of life–which should always be a priority–but it can also benefit your company in several other ways.
A diverse workforce is great for employee retention and attraction, creativity and productivity in the workplace, and financial success for your business.
Below, we’ll dive deeper into 5 reasons your company could benefit from a more diverse workforce.
1. Increase employee satisfaction
If you’re looking to increase the satisfaction of your employees, hiring a diverse workforce is one great way to do so!
A more diverse workplace demonstrates an employer’s appreciation for all of their employees without any bias regarding their identities. When you clearly show that you accept your employees regardless of their race, age, sexual preferences, gender identities, you’re cultivating a culture of care that will encourage current employees to stick around and attract a broader range of prospective talent.There are tons of benefits of high employee satisfaction rates. For one, employee retention rates will follow suit.
Additionally, employees who are more satisfied with their workplace will perform better–so not only will you be providing a great place to work, but you’ll also have more productive harder working, and more dedicated employees to increase your profits because of it!
2. Better profitability
First and foremost, hiring a more diverse workforce is about building a welcoming, accepting environment and providing equal opportunities for all types of incredible people–but there are a lot of ancillary benefits, too, including the fact that it’s highly profitable.
Research from McKinsey & Company shows that the most diverse companies are also some of the most profitable: those in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams were 21% more likely to experience above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile. As far as cultural diversity goes, companies in the top quartile were 33% more likely to have higher profitability than their less diverse counterparts.
Not only does hiring a diverse workforce increase your profits, but on the opposite end of things, failing to prioritise diversity in your company could be detrimental to your funds. McKinsey’s data shows that companies in the fourth quartile of gender and ethnic diversity are 29% less profitable than those with a more diverse workforce.
3. Cultivate creativity, breed innovation, and avoid groupthink
Without diversity in your workforce, you can run into a big issue of a lack of creativity; if everyone in your company has the same cultural backgrounds, skill sets, and professional experiences, they will likely all have very similar ideas. This can lead to groupthink, making it very difficult to breed innovation and come up with fresh concepts to move your company forward.
Luckily, diversity leads to creativity.To be innovative as an organisation, everyone must bring different perspectives to the table. So when your team puts their heads together to work towards new solutions, it’s extremely helpful to have employees from diverse backgrounds.In an experiment conducted by The Harvard Business Review, six different teams were studied as they navigated complex situations.
Unsurprisingly, the most cognitively diverse groups ended up scoring the highest; while those who failed to complete the challenges at hand or took longer to do so were less diverse.This is all to say that diversity of all types–from ethnic to professional to cognitive–is conducive to creating a highly productive team, better at problem-solving, and more creative.
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