Diversity at the workplace means hiring individuals of diverse nature i.e. people that are different from each other and does not belong to the same background or origin. It is often misunderstood as the difference of culture only but diversity includes other aspects also, such as gender, caste, origin, colour, age, religion, physical appearance or education. There is a difference between equality and diversity. Equality means ensuring each individual faces no discrimination and gets equal opportunity irrespective of their gender, caste, creed, colour, origin etc., whereas diversity means appreciating the differences of the individual and their diverse characteristics are valued.
Earlier corporates did not believe in diverse work culture and had a very narrow range of differences but as now the time has progressed, the range has broadened. Although hiring diverse individuals have become a compulsion of the companies yet diverse workforce is hired as it increases the performance and prospects of the organisation. Business requires creativity to prosper and creativity comes from different minds coming from different backgrounds, therefore companies should make diversity their topmost priority. Below are the few benefits that come from diversity at the workplace:
- Increases Productivity
The ultimate goal of a company is to increase productivity. Diversity at the workplace helps employees to put their different viewpoints and appreciating their views increases their morale and efficiency hence improving employee engagement. This helps you critically analyse the problem and solve it with different level of experience and skills. It also helps you to understand the varied customer base as employees come from different backgrounds. Therefore, diversity helps the company in overall scenario hence improving productivity. - Improves decision making
When employees come from different cultural backgrounds and origins, each has a different perspective that helps the company to have contrasting solutions to a particular problem. After this, the team members can agree to one solution considering each one’s pros and cons, hence making a better decision. This helps you to look at a problem from different angles which makes an informed and calculative decision that surely ends with a good result. - Improves company culture
Corporate culture refers to the beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours of the individuals of an organisation and defines the nature of the organisation. Introducing diversity in the workforce broadens employee’s perspective which enhances company culture. Your employees are the representative of the company in the market and their behaviour and viewpoints directly reflects the ethics of the company. Having diverse individuals makes the organisation adaptive to different norms and culture therefore improving its employer branding. This help the organisation to increase profitability and also helps in attracting better talents. - Better pool of talents
Diversity helps in fetching better talents and onboarding talented workforce. Imagine your organisation restricts to hire only a specific characteristic of group of people then you would definitely miss out on individuals having greater talents but belongs to different group. In this way, the company waste its resources on hiring ineligible candidate and it also increases employee turnover.That is why, one should not be restricted to adapt diversity and should be open to every individual fulfilling the job criteria. - Improves Creativity
Globalisation has brought several changes in corporate culture out of which one is competition. In this cut throat competition era one has to be different from other in a way or two to sustain and grow in the market. To stand out from your competitors you need to be creative and innovative with your approach and ideas. Creativity comes with different minds coming from different backgrounds. All of them will have different experience and knowledge which help the organisation innovate and create contrasting ideas that would serve the market as a whole and assist the business to thrive.
An employer should always encourage diversity in the workplace as it not only fits into global trend but also provides company with competitive advantages by improving employer branding, creativity and productivity. It also makes the company socially responsible as it breaks the societal norms of diffrentiating people based on their group or physical feature. Diversity is embracing one another’s differences.
