We live in a world where every color, caste, creed, gender, nationality, religion, socioeconomic stratum all together makes a shaped and interconnected world thats play an important role to build a diverse society. The concept of diversity envelops acknowledgment and regard. It implies understanding that every individual is different & unique and deserves equal respect and appreciation as anyone does. Recently in news also, we have been watching & hearing many diversification & discrimination issues which requires consideration, for e.g., BLACK LIVES MATTER (BLM).
Diversity in the work environment is important for both organizations and their employees, however it takes cautious support and management to build capability of diverse workforce comprised of gender, religion, race, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education & other various properties.
Inclusion means that everybody within the diverse blend feels involved, included, esteemed, regarded, treated equally, and implanted in the culture. Encouraging all team members and recognizing their extraordinary caliber, capabilities & abilities key to form an inclusive and comprehensive company.
Why it is important in the workplace?
It’s important for every employee to feel that they are working in the workplace where their community, their race, their gender, their orientation is respected and get equal chance to speak and work.
As per Culture AMP the majority of women in the workforce feel excluded from decision making, as they do not feel comfortable expressing their opinions, and do not feel as though they can succeed as they believe their perspective is not important or ever will be included in decision making at their company and this is a failure for organization in planning and implementation of diversity and inclusions.
Other key findings of Cultureamp also stated that,
- Seven in 10 men and only 4 in 10 women are satisfied with how decisions are made at their company.
- Women are less likely to speak up and also are much less likely to feel comfortable sharing a different perspective. Only two-thirds of women responding to the survey believe they can voice a contrary opinion without fear of negative consequences while 8 in 10 men feel they can voice contrary views.
- Women are also much less likely to believe people from different backgrounds can succeed at their company with 6 in 10 women responding favorably versus 8 in 10 males.
According to a Glassdoor survey, 72 percent of women, 89 percent of black respondents, 80 percent of Asians, and 70 percent of Latinos said workforce diversity was important to them. Also according to the new LinkedIn Data, people are paying attention to companies talking about diversity.
In a Glassdoor survey of 1000 individuals, it was found that 67% of job seekers searches the job or accepts the offer on the basis of the diversity program that the company is offering & 50% of current employees want their workplace to do more to increase diversity.
Team work & success also needs a secure & safe atmosphere where employee feel esteemed for who they are, not frightful of being judged, negated, laughed or discriminated against. But unfortunately according to the study of officevibe, 19% of employees do not feel that people’s personal identities are respected by everyone in their organization.
Diverse companies are more beneficial, innovative and make way better choices than the companies which do not care about diversification and inclusion. Even employees with diverse backgrounds have their own point of view and perceptions, ideas, concepts and experience which plays important role in the growth of the company. Even Employees too are more likely to be turned on and stay with those organizations which talks and believes upon diversity & inclusions.
As per the study by Cloverpop mentioned by Glassdoor, the inclusive decision-making leads to better business decisions 87% of the time, reaching those decisions twice as fast in half the meeting times.
Now the question is, if company is responsible for diversification than who is responsible for the inclusion?
Eventually, each person in a company is responsible for making the individuals around them feel secure and valued. This incorporates everyone including directors, managers, colleagues in other departments. When values of value and regard are immovably established, they convert in something that each employee feels actually responsible to maintain that.
According to the study by Harvard Business review (HBR) of 1,069 leading firms across 35 countries and 24 industries, they found that gender diversity relates to more productive companies.
Gartner found that inclusive teams improve team performance by up to 30 percent in high-diversity environments.
McKinsey’s research shows that gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform their peers and ethnically-diverse companies are 35% more likely to do the same.
Final thoughts:
Increasing & expanding the diversity and inclusions in workplace isn’t something that’s planning to happen overnight. It takes time and proper anticipation and the critical thing is to get started. Here also the, company would be needing the decisions of diverse team to create a diverse environment to include where they can get productive employees from every fields & expertise to outperform in this competitive world.
