According to a McKinsey report:
Out of 366 companies surveyed, those that were “in the top quartiles for ethnic and racial diversity management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above industry mean”.
With the Black Lives Matter movement gaining momentum across the globe, it shed light on old and new themes that have been neglected by society for far too long. People are supporting black-owned business and shouting for equality and justice in the streets of every major city. With this, we have noticed an increase in the number of corporations who promise, to their customers, that they will do better to support minorities and push for equality within their workforce. This change has been long overdue, and I think now, with growing unrest all over the world, we might begin to finally see a difference. Diversity and equality within the workforce should not be seen as an inconvenience, but as a beneficial advantage for their own organization. We believe creating an open and inclusive culture should be made a priority by all businesses, below you can read about and understand why so.
Fresh perspectives:
Hiring individuals from different backgrounds can be a benefit for the organization. Having people with a variety of differing experiences working together, can produce new solutions or problem-solving methods. It would bring fresh new perspectives into the office where the employees would be able to apply their distinct outlooks to providing unique solutions to ordinary problems. It has been noted that “diverse teams see a 60% improvement in decision-making abilities”. This can be an advantage for the business as it can be cost-effective and result in a competitive lead.
Diverse and larger talent pool:
If your company makes diversity a core hiring factor, then you are able to benefit from a wider and more diverse talent pool. This means that you would be able to hire individuals with different skillset and specializations. In addition, a number of candidates tend to look at the workforce culture as a decision-making factor as to whether they see themselves as an employee of that office, this is specifically true with the younger generation. People, now a days, want to work in diversified communities, and therefore some of the best and entrepreneurial talent will seek to apply to these types of organizations.
Increase in employee performance:
Having a unique heterogeneous employee environment can stimulate and create cognitive diversity. This, in turn, can lead to a higher quality of employee performance as they can work and interact with individuals that think and execute in a different manner than their own. People who embrace diversity and seek this factor within a workforce, tend to also feel more comfortable and at ease in these types of environments, which can (again) result in higher performances.
Higher profits: As previously mentioned, having a more diverse working environment can increase employee performance and, with this, result in more favorable profits. According to a McKinsey report:
Out of 366 companies surveyed, those that were “in the top quartiles for ethnic and racial diversity management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above industry mean”.
Those that were in the “top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean”
Additionally, it has been “found that U.S. public companies with diverse executive boards have a 95% higher return on equity than those with homogenous boards”
All the factors listed above demonstrate the advantages and importance of having and hiring a diverse talent pool for your organization. It is time that we embrace heterogeneity within our societies and begin to recognize them as a benefit for the operations of a business, but also as a virtue of our globalized communities.
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rsmdiscovery/2018/08/22/why-workplace-diversity-is-so-important-and-why-its-so-hard-to-achieve/#43c115d43096
