What is Workplace Diversity?
Diversity in the workplace means employing people of different ages, genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, cultural backgrounds, and education levels, among other identity factors.
Having a diverse workplace takes consistent effort, from ensuring your job postings reach a wide and diverse audience, to adjusting on-boarding and human resources practices, to making your workplace welcoming to diverse employees. As diversity takes time, effort, and strategizing from the highest levels of an organization, many employers may not see it as a priority. As of 2021, 57% of employees feel their company could be doing more, and 41% of managers admit to being “too busy” to implement diversity inclusion programs.
Why then should workplace diversity be a strategic priority? And what are the benefits of workplace diversity?
It’s because of diversity in the workplace:
- Increases the bottom line. Companies that champion diversity are 70% more likely to capture more markets. Racially and ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to perform better. Highly gender-diverse executive teams are 21% more likely to outperform annually on profitability.
- Boosts innovation. Organizations who identify as “diverse” are 1.7 times more innovative. Diverse teams are 87% better at making decisions, and inclusive companies are 120% more likely to hit financial goals.
- Improves employee morale. More than 57% of employees think that their company could be doing more to boost diversity, and 76% of employees and job seekers report a diverse workforce is an important factor when evaluating companies and job offers.
- Is the right move. Inequality is still predominant in all North American organizations. Men are still twice as likely to get hired as any other gender, and women remain much more likely to be hired with blind applications. Additionally, BIPOC remain 50% less likely to receive callbacks compared to white candidates. By prioritizing diversity in your organization, you can work against these larger patterns of inequality – and secure qualified staff in the process.
Workplace diversity may be the path to greater success for your organization and happier employees. Need help with increasing and supporting workplace diversity? Contact Canadian Equality Consulting and begin a discussion on how to make your workplace more responsive to the needs of your diverse employees.