6 Ways to Support Diversity in Your Workplace

Did you know that diverse teams are 35% more likely to outperform their competitors? It’s true.

According to reports from McKinsey, Forbes, and People Management, they’re also 87% better at making decisions, deliver 60% better results, and have 19% higher rates of innovation.

Nurturing a diverse workforce, then, is just good business.

What is a Diverse Workforce?

Workforce diversity refers to the range of differences among your employees in terms of their age, race, sexual orientation, disabilities, gender identity, and religion.

A high-performing team would be made of people from all walks of life – making it in your best interest to create an inclusive environment that encourages everyone to be themselves.

How to Support Diversity in Your Workplace

Step 1 – Build Your Policy

At their core, every workplace should have a Diversity & Inclusion policy that encourages fair treatment between staff members. To be successful, this must be accessible to every employee, introduced during onboarding, and then used by management as a guide for decision-making following an issue.

Step 2 – Check Your Bias

One of the easiest ways to build a more inclusive workplace is to consciously check your bias. When considering who to promote internally, for example, make sure to challenge the rationale behind your gut instinct. Why are you leaning toward one person over another? Is it because of their… age, gender, or physical ability?

Step 3 – Recruit Diversely

Once you start checking your bias, incorporate this mindset into your recruitment processes. Rather than immediately defaulting to an older candidate when filling a leadership position, you need to factor in skills and qualifications as well as experience.

Step 4 – Challenge Microagressions

To protect your diverse employees, you need to be willing to put your foot down and challenge ‘harmless banter’ around the office. According to McKinsey & Company, women, and especially those from marginalised identities, experience microaggressions at significantly higher rates than men – putting them in an uncomfortable position at work.

Step 5 – Encourage Communication

How can you help your staff members if you don’t know that they’re struggling? It’s essential that every workplace puts systems into place to allow employees to report issues. Otherwise, you risk a toxic work culture forming. 

Step 6 – Seek External Support

In short, there are lots of little things that you can do to support diversity in your workplace. If you’re struggling, you should consider…:

• Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Training: Teaching your staff members about respecting each other, despite any perceived differences, will help encourage them to be more aware of the way they behave.
• Assessing Your Corporate Values: When businesses are experiencing ongoing difficulty with maintaining a diverse team, there’s usually a bigger problem at play. You may need to manage employee wellbeing by reshaping your business ethos.
• Working with RC&A: As experienced recruiters, we have spent years checking our bias to build diverse teams – ensuring that valuable candidates aren’t dismissed simply because of their age, race, or gender.

Contact us today to find out more. We’d be happy to help.