A Diverse Culture Helps Long-Term Company Growth

Posted October 29, 2017

Diversity brings many wonderful benefits to an organization; anything from more creativity to better decisions.

The issue of workplace diversity must be addressed holistically, with holding onto staff members being just as important as recruitment. Retention is particularly important for businesses in less diverse locations, where relocated people from different ethnic, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds may feel disconnected to the company and the community. In these situations, companies must take an active role in helping employees from unique backgrounds adjust.

Where are you lacking?

Before you start thinking about changes, you need to identify your diversity needs. Does your workforce look like the communities you serve and operate in? If not, your company's hiring strategy and retention strategies should look to increase workforce diversity in those areas where it is lacking.

Put a structure in place

If you want to shift coming from a homogeneous office to a diversified one, you need to change the way you do things and it helps to have a structure for doing this.

The structure you use to boost diversity should depend on the size of the business. Bigger businesses probably need a whole department focused on diversity. For smaller start-ups, an owner or a top-level manager can probably take this on. The idea is to dedicate time and resources to triggering change, so your diversity policy goes past the planning phase and becomes reality.

Outreach

Change should start with talking to local community organizations, including places of worship, cultural organizations, and colleges. They can help you connect with potential employees and increase your organization's level of cultural sensitivity.

In addition to connecting with local organizations, you can also talk to national nonprofits like the Urban League and the National Council of La Raza. If you think recruiting from outside the area makes sense for your company, expand your search to other towns, states or countries.

Establish firm equal opportunity and anti-discrimination policies

Develop and put into practice an equal option employment coverage that comes after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rules. The aim is usually to set up an equitable hiring process that is unbiased when it comes to age, race, gender and physical ability. Set up a committee to help carry out the policy and develop new ideas on how to get more diversity to the business. Modify the business mission to express this change.

While it's legally necessary for most areas, a policy informing staff members of their right to a workplace free of discrimination is simply a good business practice.

As part of the onboarding system for new workers lay out guidelines on what type of behavior is acceptable and what is not, so that everybody understands what’s expected and what kind of support they can expect from the company.

It's also essential to act if people behave in ways that don't match your company's values. If you've handled diversity well and have a good, inclusive culture, then these incidents ought to be uncommon. However, they will happen, and when they do, you should make sure that you take them seriously.

At Ambassador Personnel, we support all the policies of our client companies, especially those pertaining to inclusiveness and diversity. Please contact us today to find out how we can help your company with a custom staffing solution as a full-service staffing firm.