Having a diverse team can bring many benefits including:

• Increased creativity and innovation
• Increased productivity
• A wider range of skills-set
• Higher employee engagement
• Increased profit

Despite all of these positives, many businesses struggle to implement diversity agendas. A recent study showed 41% of managers admit to being “too busy” to implement diversity programmes into their workforce. A team that has a variety of skills and outlook on life are more dynamic as a group and have a better work ethic. Companies who employ a more diverse team will increase their profit by up to 35%.

Looking to the future and how attractive your business is to prospective employees – Did you know that around 65% of potential employees research a company before applying to a job to check out how diverse the team is? 1 in 3 of today’s candidates will not progress with their application if the broadcasted team is lacking in diversity. This will only increase as more centennials move into the workplace. The next generation is looking to be a part of businesses to be that emulate their own personal values.

So how do we implement meaningful and effective diversity programmes? The biggest challenge businesses face when it comes to diversity is biases. Whether we know it or not, we ALL suffer from unconscious biases. Many business approach their diversity agenda with initiatives such as community groups or one off training courses to help combat diversity issues that are independent to core business processes. Whilst the aforementioned efforts are all a step in the right direction, if businesses really want to effect change to the diversity and culture of the business, leaders need to be thinking about what business tools can be implemented to help achieve fairer and impartial processes.

Evidence and metrics are tools business leaders use to measure sales, marketing, staff productivity, attendance, efficiency… So why aren’t we approaching diversity in the same way? Businesses need to be creating processes for hiring and performance that are companywide, implemented from the very top right the way to the bottom. Processes that are so transparent and clear they are can’t open to interpretation.

Once implemented, and alongside training your team to be aware of unconscious biases they might have, you can start to use the evidence and metrics you gather to make more diverse business decisions. This could mean you start to source more diverse talent pools when recruiting, or you begin to progress more diverse team members into leadership roles.

Diversity is one of the key elements in creating happier employment, it will create better workplaces for everyone to be a part of. It will also enrich your experience as an employer and enrich your employee’s engagement too.

Do you want some help in putting together better business processes that eliminate bias and help you build a more diverse team? Drop us an email and we are more than happy to help!