- Connect diversity to the bottom line. Find new markets or work more strategically with your customers as you explore ways to increase your business profits. Consider how a diverse workforce will enable your company to achieve these goals. Think creatively. At a Fortune 500 manufacturing company, Hispanics buy many products. When the company hired a marketing director for Spain, profits jumped dramatically in less than a year thanks to targeted marketing efforts. Your new client maybe someone with a disability or someone over the age of 65.
- Speech counts. If senior management develops a diverse workforce, diversity must be reflected at all levels of the organization. If you do not, some employees will soon realize that they have no future in your company. Do not be afraid to use words like black, white, gay, or lesbian. Develop respect for diversity issues and clear and positive responses to them.
- Increase your efforts. Does diversity in your company only mean race and gender? As babies grow older and more minorities enter the workplace, demographic change means that managing a multi-generational and multicultural workforce will become the norm. In addition, there are many specialized tools that allow people with disabilities to successfully participate in their work environment. If your organizational environment does not fully support diversity and inclusion training, you run the risk of losing competence to competitors. How does your counting job reach all qualified candidates?
- Remove artificial barriers to success. The style of the interview—behavioral or functional—may be detrimental to some candidates. For example, older employees are less familiar with behavioral interviews and may underperform unless your recruiter asks directly about the kind of experience they’re looking for. Employees from countries other than the U.S. and non-Caucasian populations may downplay their achievements or focus on describing “who they know” rather than “what they know.” Train your recruiters on the cultural component of interviewing. How does your HR process provide equal opportunity for all?
- Maintain diversity at all levels. The definition of diversity goes beyond race and gender and includes lifestyle issues. Programs that address work and family issues – alternative work plans and childcare resources and referrals – are a good business concept. How to protect valuable employees?
- Provide practical training. Using relevant examples to teach a small group of people how to resolve conflict and value different opinions helps a company far more than a large, abstract diversity lecture. Training also needs to emphasize the importance of different ideas. Workers care more about whether their bosses value their ideas than whether they belong to an all-white male or racially diverse workforce. In addition, train leaders to look beyond their own cultural frame of reference to recognize and fully exploit the productivity potential inherent in diverse populations. How do you provide diversity training at your company?
- Mentor others in your company who are unfamiliar. Involve your manager in a mentoring program to coach and provide feedback to employees who differ from them. Some of your most influential mentors may be people with whom you have little in common. Find someone who is not like you. Find people from different backgrounds, races, or genders. Find someone who thinks differently than you. How to find mentors who are different from you?
- Measure your results. Conduct regular organizational assessments on issues such as compensation, benefits, work environment, management, and promotion opportunities to assess your long-term progress. Keep doing what works and stop doing what doesn’t. How do you measure the impact of diversity initiatives in your organization?
In Beyond Race and Gender, R. Roosevelt Thomas defines managing diversity as “a comprehensive management process for developing an environment that works for all employees.” A successful strategic diversification program can also increase profits and reduce expenses.
The long-term success of any business requires diverse talent who can bring new ideas, perspectives, and perspectives, as well as a corporate mindset that values those perspectives. It’s also no secret that a lack of diversity can affect your ability to communicate effectively with different clients. Tie your diversity strategy to specific goals like morale, retention, performance, and bottom line. Build your business with everything you have, complex multi-dimensional talents and free articles on the personalities of your employees, and make diversity work for you.
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