4 Critical Diversity Factors in Today's Workplace
How diverse is your workplace?
Diversity in the work environment can be a powerful thing, inspiring greater creativity, stronger results and new opportunities for your organisation. In fact, a diverse recruitment strategy can even make your company culture more appealing.
If you're not used to making diversity a deliberate part of your hiring process, then it’s time to embrace the many upsides of hiring a diverse range of employees.
Today we will cover four critical factors affecting diversity hiring in today’s workplace.
1: Not understanding the benefits diversity can bring
A quest for diversity needs the support of every leadership employee in your team. That means everyone responsible for hiring and managing in your group needs to understand the values that come with a broad range of personalities, backgrounds, and insights.
Listing some of the key benefits of diversity can make it easier to get buy-in for making this initiative a critical part of your mission statement. For instance:
- Diverse workplaces are more innovative. Different people from unique backgrounds have a broader range of skills to offer. For instance, your graduate might not have as much experience. However, they may have additional training in new finance technology or areas of Audit or Tax.
- Diversity ensures creative thinking: A broader selection of hires also promotes out-of-the-box thinking. The more variety you have regarding cultures, genders, and even generations, the more likely you are to get unique perspectives into complex challenges.
- Diversity improves your employer brand: A Glassdoor survey found that two-thirds of respondents see diversity as attractive when deciding where to work. Embracing a wider range of people can make you more attractive to top tier talent.
2: Finding opportunities for diversity
Once you understand the value a diverse team can bring, you need to find ways to bring new and interesting employees into your mix. Fortunately, this is where a specialist recruitment agency can help.
A recruitment team can connect with a broad range of personalities and individuals by tapping into their portfolio of passive and active candidates. Alongside helping you to write job descriptions that will attract great candidates for the role.
3: Problems with inclusion
One common diversity issue that arises in the workforce is a problem with inclusion. Just because you hire people from different backgrounds to join your team, doesn't mean your other staff members will know how to embrace them into their daily routines. Often, the problem here is a lack of understanding.
Diversity training programs can help with building high-performing teams out of a broad range of people. Additionally, you can look at creating opportunities for employees to collaborate and engage on a regular basis to establish bonds and bridge the gaps between generations, races, and genders.
Implement multi-level mentorship strategies and introduce avenues that your team members can use to network and connect as often as possible. A more inclusive workplace community will lead to more satisfied staff, better retention and fewer problems with internal conflict.
4: Generational Differences
Every year, new generations enter the workforce, often causing a shift in the way staff members communicate and thrive.
A good way to overcome common generational difficulties is to get to know each hire individually. Learn how they define a successful day at work and find out what their long-term career goals are. A successful diversity and inclusion plan requires leaders to remember that everyone they employ doesn't necessarily work the same way.
Taking an individual approach to connecting with each person will allow leaders to come up with unique motivational and support strategies to suit the needs of every candidate they bring on board. The result will be happier, more dedicated employees thriving in a diverse environment.
About First 2 Recruit Ltd
First 2 Recruit Ltd, is an owner managed recruitment consultancy providing a full recruitment service including; permanent and FTC positions in Accountancy Practice and Insolvency across the UK.
If you like this blog, why not check out more by visiting our Blog page on our website, we cover every recruitment topic and also have free reports and whitepapers that you might find useful. Visit www.first2recruit.co.uk
Alternatively, email office@first2recruit.co.uk or call one of our friendly team on 01722 440 168.