Diverse workforces offer a multitude of benefits for employees and employers alike. Companies with diverse talent experience increased revenue, productivity, comfort in the workplace. Diverse teams have been reported to make decisions faster and have lower turnover rates. Making sure everyone at your company has a voice and feels heard is crucial to your business’s bottom line.
How to increase diversity at work
Now that we’ve covered the importance and challenges of a diverse work environment, below are some strategies that employers and hiring managers can use to increase diversity in their company.
Remove bias from the hiring process
Blind hiring is an excellent tactic to remove bias from the hiring process since you’re unable to make judgments of the candidate based on the information you know about them. In a study of orchestras that tried blind auditions, women musicians increased from 5 to 25%. Blind recruiting can be done through software like Blendoor or Textio, which hide the candidate’s name and demographic background to avoid unconscious bias.
Seek out global candidates
Another way to increase diversity is to hire employees from across the world. Not only will you have employees that speak multiple languages, but they will also help you expand your market around their world with their cultural knowledge. One way to accommodate global employees is to offer remote work flexibility.
Create a diversity mission statement
Before you start hiring, it’s important to create a policy that highlights anti-discrimination practices at your company. It’s advised to include a no-tolerance policy for any type of discrimination to prevent any unwanted harassment of a minority employee.
Glassdoor research showed that 76% of job candidates take into account a company’s position on diversity in their job decisions. You can include this statement in your job postings or on your hiring pages to highlight this to your applicants.
Rethink holiday celebrations
Changing company traditions like Christmas Parties to culturally-friendly celebrations is a great way to include everyone at work. It’s also advised to offer alcohol-free gatherings to accommodate employees of different backgrounds so they don’t feel like the odd one out.
Change company practices to be more inclusive
Appealing to diverse talent will require your company to make some large-scale changes. From providing training materials in different languages to installing ADA-compliant hallways and ramps, valuing employee differences will improve retention and create better outcomes for all. For more tips on valuing diversity, check out this infographic from Velocity Global.
We want to thank velocityglobal.com for providing the following infographic.
