Posted on December 7th, 2022

When talking about diversity in the US, the first thing that comes to mind is the political dynamics of the country. Race, gender, and sexuality have been the focal points of political debate and activities for a few years now.

However, the most recent and important occurrence is the election of Kamala Harris as the first female vice president of the United States, who is also black and of South Asian descent. Along with this, there was an election of an openly transgender state senator as well as of two gay, black Congressmen for the first time in history.

These are substantial steps in the country’s political and social arena, which can greatly impact the progression of its success in the future. However, the less democratic, corporate world still has a long way to go.

The dialogue of inclusion and diversity has been around for as long as we can remember. There is a regular debate on whether or not social and professional environments around the world truly accept their diversity.

When we talk about diversity, we often limit the discussion to gender and race. However, in the truest sense of the word, diversity includes all types of differences, including the difference of mindsets and backgrounds as well as sexuality. While many businesses across the globe, especially in the US, have attempted to accept and build upon the diversity of their employees, they have missed the mark in some way or the other.

It’s important to understand that diversity is not just about having people of different races, genders, social backgrounds, or mindsets as part of your team. But really about making members of your team feel like they belong. A sense of belonging is one of the most crucial factors that affect your quality of work. That is, when you feel like you belong to a team, your work ethic improves significantly, and that is one of the stepping stones of success for the entire organization.

What business managers and team leaders often fail to realize is that small steps, like accepting and promoting diversity in the workplace, does not only benefit the individual worker but also the team as a whole.

Several studies have shown a positive causal relationship between inclusive teams and better performance. Moreover, diverse teams are more likely to “think out of the box,” and thus, make better business decisions. One of the fundamental reasons why any team or organization needs diversity is innovation.

Research shows that diversity encourages constructive argument, helps develop perspectives, which leads to better problem solving and the discovering of new and great ideas. Furthermore, one of the fundamental benefits of diversity is the diversity of information.

Information diversity involves gathering and interpreting information from a wide variety of sources. This information can take the form of facts, opinions, and perspectives which differ from one another to devise exclusive and innovative strategies as well as solutions to crises. People from differing races, genders, and walks of life bring their own unique experiences with them along with specialized skills and expertise that they could have acquired during those experiences to help the business come up with exceptional ideas.

Moreover, the benefits of diversity in the workforce are not limited to any specific type of business or organization. Various studies over time have evaluated the impact of diversity on the performance of all types of different firms and, while most of them have identified a positive correlation, none of them has identified any disadvantage of having a diverse workforce.

A survey conducted by the Credit Suisse Research Institute examining 2360 companies all over the world concluded that firms that have at least one woman on the director’s board performed significantly better in terms of average growth, gearing, and average returns on equity.

In simpler terms, diversity can be described as accepting people for who they are. This, alone, brings countless benefits for the company because when people are comfortable enough to be fully and unapologetically themselves at the workplace, they are highly likely to enjoy their work more and are willing to contribute to the best of their potential. This is, again, because of the sense of belonging, which is what makes them want to treat the company as their own.

Research by the Harvard Business Review shows that people from the LGBTQ community perform better once they have come “out” about their sexuality. This is largely attributed to the fact that closeted workers are more likely to suffer from anxiety and have a fear of how their colleagues or superiors might judge them.

Therefore, they tend to spend a lot of physical and mental energy trying to keep their sexuality a secret, which drains them out and, in turn, affects their work performance. This is highly problematic for a company as it may be missing out on some outstanding skills that a certain employee must have just because they failed to make them feel like they belong.

As many benefits as diversity and inclusivity have for a business organization, there are also many possible challenges that the team, as a whole, might have to overcome. These can include difficulty working with people who might have different cultures, values, and morals than yourself.

These differences can sometimes lead to disturbances in the workplace as there might be resistance to leadership as well as a general lack of trust amongst the employees. However, these challenges can only become unsurmountable hurdles if the leadership of the organization fails to respect the individuality of the different types of people they are bringing into the organization and expect their workforce to conform to certain pre-set standards and limitations.

And this is how most companies miss the mark when it comes to developing a diverse workforce. Increasing diversity and inclusivity in your team means you fully accept the different opinions, values, perspectives, and ways of thinking that your workers bring with them and let them be themselves without hesitation. Only then can you expect them to treat the organization as their own and willingly contribute to it.

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Original article: Everything You Should Know About Diversity

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