People tend to trust the people who look and think like them the most.
This is probably down to the fact that these people are the most predictable and therefore easiest to manage.
At work this can quickly lead to a workforce who all look and think the same and therefore lack the creativity and productivity a diverse workforce can offer.
In 2018, it is time to take the lack of diversity like a bull by the horns. Including people from different backgrounds, of different genders, classes and ethnicities is vital for your business to succeed and it’s time to stop hiring the same people over and again. Shake things up; do something different.
Attract More Talent
This might sound surprising, but it shouldn’t. Just as people tend to trust the people they can predict best, they also look for someone like them.
If a young black woman is faced with a company entirely made up of old white men, she’s going to think twice about joining this old boys club, isn’t she?
Attracting talent is about showing a wide variety of people that they are welcome in your organization and they will find someone like them, whoever they are.
As a business owner, you may have become blind to what prospective employees see when they come to your offices so you need to ask people how you can improve. For a start, hiring access consultants will show you where you can help disabled people to feel more welcome.
Get New Perspectives
Once you are able to attract more diverse talent, you will see how quickly new perspectives enable your business to flourish.
Rather than hearing the same thing over and again, people who think differently will provide you with other options or things to consider while you are making decisions.
A perfect use for these new perspectives is in your hiring committee. If you want to create a more diverse team, it makes sense that you would diversify the hiring panel.
Plus, by involving more people in the decision-making process, it’s more likely that the person who gets hired will fit in well with the rest of the team.
Improve Your Productivity
If attracting more talent and gaining new perspectives hasn’t persuaded you yet, there is one more brilliant reason to increase the diversity of your team that surely will: your productivity will be improved and your profits will go up.
This is because with that influx of talent and a new forum for throwing about ideas, your team will be able to come up with more creative solutions to problems that will improve your efficiency and may even create a radical change that will allow you to do more of what you are best at.
Diversity is key to the prosperity of your organisation and dealing with it now will set you up for a much brighter future.
