Do you have diversity in your recruiting, in each of your departments, and in your leadership? Or do you have a workplace where 50% of your employees are women but 0% of your women are managers? Do you have a good representation of employees of different ethnic origins, but all of them are in the same department?
These telling questions reveal true diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
A diverse, equal and inclusive (DEI) workplace is one that makes everyone, regardless of who they are or what they do for the business feel equally involved in and supported in all areas of the workplace, as well as receive equal job opportunities. The “all areas” part is what is important.
Equality
Equality at the workplace refers to the equal job opportunities and fairness for employees and job applicants. The term “equality” suggests that employers must not treat people unfairly for reasons protected by the discrimination law such as for example someone’s gender or race. Equality in the workplace also seeks to provide employees with the same money, resources, and opportunities between all workers at a similar level.
Diversity
Diversity represents the range of people in a company’s workforce. This means people with different ages, ethnicities, religions, and people with disabilities for example which are both male and female. It also suggests valuing those differences and avoiding bullying at the workplace.
Inclusion
This term is defined by the extent to which employees feel valued and therefore included in in their working environment. For example, employees must be empowered and feel free to come up with and share different ideas, raise issues with their employers and colleagues as well as make suggestions and try to do things differently than before with management’s approval.
Importance of DEI to organizational success
Making sure diversity, inclusion and equality are established practices in a company is very crucial as it helps increase revenue growth, allows for greater readiness to innovate, the ability to recruit a diverse talent pool and 5.4 times higher employee retention. Especially inclusion in the workplace is known to be key to retention. When employees feel like their ideas, presence and contributions are not being valued or acknowledged by their employer, they will eventually leave the company.
Bigger Talent Pool
If you do not change the way your recruiting process is structured, you will always attract the same type of people in your organization. Since 67% of workers consider diversity when seeking employment, expanding your recruitment searches to more diverse candidates, which means people from different backgrounds, ethnicity, age etc., widens your talent pool and boosts your chances of finding the best hire, as well as meeting candidate’s expectations.
Increased Employee Engagement and Trust
By building an inclusive work environment, as an employer you can instill more trust between employees and leadership. Since only 1 in 5 HR and engagement leaders agree their employees deeply trust their company leaders, adapting an inclusive approach can be very beneficial to employee morale and trust building. When workers are actively engaged in their work this generates a ripple effect on profitability, team morale, and retention. People’s mental and physical wellbeing seems to be better when they are valued by the organization they work for.
Builds Brand Reputation
Offering employees equal opportunities helps build brand reputation and brand loyalty. Loyalty and pride in a company are strongly correlated with the feeling of a sense of belonging within a group of employees in an organization. Bringing together workers from all different backgrounds promotes intra-company and inter-company networking, boosts morale and generates cohesive teams focused on achieving positive results for the organization. Moreover, creativity in problem-solving also aids in building creativity which then drives innovation.
All in all, when implementing DEI as a policy in a company, organizations need to make sure they educate their workforce about the growing incidents of workplace conflict as a result of prejudices based on background, age, gender, culture etc. Employees should be trained to identify, report and resolve such incidents in the workplace. It is of great importance that companies strive to create a safe, fair and inclusive work environment for their workers, where they can prosper and contribute intrinsically to the firm’s growth.
GRS Recruitment can aid and assist your business in attracting and securing top talent with an inclusive hiring process. For more information on our Recruitment Service contact one of Consultants on +357 25342720 or email info@grsrecruitment.com