Accelerated Growth, Innovation, and Other Diverse Team Benefits

The term ‘workplace diversity’ has existed since 1964, when the Civil Rights Act made it illegal to practice discriminatory hiring and firing practices. Since then, the phrase has become somewhat of a vague buzzword used to describe the differences between employees.

However, workplace diversity is more than just displaying a stock image of people from different backgrounds working in perfect harmony together as a team. It isn’t an abstract idea — it’s about building a workforce that represents a diverse spectrum of today’s global workforce.

What is workplace diversity?

Workplace diversity is more than hiring people across different ethnicities and races. A company that truly implements diverse hiring practices will have a workforce composed of people from different age groups, genders, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, physical appearance, sexual orientation, capabilities, disabilities, education, experience, and more.

Why hire diverse teams?

Today, there are large amounts of data that prove the many diverse team benefits. Here are five advantages of embracing diversity and inclusion in your organization.

1. Boosts creativity and innovation

One of the best ways to ensure the development of new and innovative ideas is through hiring a diverse workforce. And that’s because our culture significantly influences how we see the world. All the personal and professional experiences of our lives bring new perspectives to the table, inspiring other colleagues to view an opportunity, a roadblock, or even a task through a different lens.

One company that exemplifies diversity is the cosmetics giant L’Oréal. The organization attributes a significant part of its success to multicultural product development teams. With a portfolio of brands from cultures like French (L’Oréal Paris and Lancôme), Japanese (Shu Uemura), American (Maybelline and Kiehl’s), Italian (Giorgio Armani), and British (The Body Shop), the company also has offices in over 130 countries across the globe.

2. Increases productivity and performance

While working in a homogenous team may seem like the easy way out, it often leads to organizations settling for the status quo. Diverse teams, on the other hand, push people to think out-of-the-box, challenge norms, breed healthy competition and encourage them to achieve their personal best. The result? A notable increase in overall productivity.

Consider Accenture — a company that leveraged diverse leadership to boost organizational performance. Accenture’s global team is led by 31.9% female executives and 41.6% minority executives. But that’s not all. They are also increasing their ethnic diversity hiring by bringing on board people from South Africa, the UK, and the US. Additionally, they’ve launched a Black Founders Development Program to support entrepreneurs in the US to advance their tech businesses.

Read the full article at: https://thescalers.com/accelerated-growth-innovation-and-other-diverse-team-benefits/