Article: Why do diversity and inclusion matter at workplaces

Diversity

Why do diversity and inclusion matter at workplaces

Diversity and Inclusion is a crucial factor that determines the culture of an organization.
Why do diversity and inclusion matter at workplaces

The modern working culture has changed drastically with digitization and progression in organizations. There are undeniable positive outcomes of having a diversified team which is used to retain the best employees in the organization. Diversity is just about the nationality of an employee; it describes their age, gender, educational levels, cultural background, personality, their belief and much more. 

According to Morales Project Consulting’s Jorge Morales Pedraza, Smart organization is organizations that are knowledge-driven, internet worked, dynamically adaptive to new organizational forms and practices, learning as well as agile in their ability to create and exploit the opportunities offered by the new economy. And all the smart organizations have been adapting Diversity and inclusion (D&I), as they are exceptionally crucial in building the company culture. Here are some reasons how D&I helps to create a company culture:

Company Culture

Though managing the diverse culture is more robust than managing a non-diversified organization, but it sure has its benefits. A culturally diverse organization tends to perform much better. With a team like that, an organization has more and innovative ways to reach their target audience. McKinsey in their studies states that an organization with diverse culture are more likely to make 21% more profits than other organizations. Another study concluded, “The challenges from an increasingly require a search for new ways for managing behavior. Traditional paradigms that overly focus on efficiency and profitability may not be adequate to understand the dynamics of the future multi-cultural organization. More emphasis on the current trend toward non-hierarchical, decentralized and flat organizational structures will be a positive step forward. Over and above all this is the creation of a climate that accepts and values the opportunities and challenges inherent in a diverse workforce.”

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence(EQ) plays a crucial role in an organization with a diverse culture. A person with higher EQ tends to make a great leader due to the sensitivity towards his or her employees. They are also self-aware, excellent at communication, empathetic, and regulate emotions which help them motivate their team. “According to our model, engagement encompasses five broad areas: meaningful work and jobs, management practices and behaviors, the work environment, opportunities for development and growth, and trust in leadership.” states in  Deloitte Insights.

Some ways EQ can help build diversity and inclusion are; continuous feedbacks, team building sessions, surveys for employees, ways to make meetings enjoyable that includes everyone. 

The leaders can have open dialogues; free-flowing communication will only bring employees to be free and talk their mind which will act as pillars for your culturally diversified organizations. It states clearly in A Study on Emotional Intelligence At Work Place, “This study confirms that both emotional intelligence and work-life balance together create organizational success and develop competitive advantage for organizations.”

Diversified Approach

Every member of your team is different and has to be handled differently. A good leader will recognize this and act accordingly. We have established the importance of cultural growth and its impacts. However, to keep this culture intact it is essential for the leader to communicate with employees frequently and to understand their needs for the growth of the team and organization. 

The team leads need to celebrate and support the individuality of an employee for empowering confidence. For instance, leaders can encourage individualism by avoiding group thinking, it sometimes shuts out alternative viewpoints. The leaders can ask an individual's perspective and encourage them to contribute to teams growth. This also helps them recognize employee behavior to evaluate further the employee's goals which they can help with. It is the best way to increase the productivity of the team and enforce positive environment.

Implementation of the culture

There are a few ways you can execute the culture you have worked so hard to build: 

Decision-making process: It is suggested to share the decision-making process as it results in greater inclusion from siloed departments, team building, and new ideas you wouldn’t have considered on your own.

Be flexible: Be empathetic and understand the employee's needs. One doesn't have to be too lenient to be flexible, but at the same time, they don't have to be too harsh either. For example, A new parent may need to be home or work from home could be permitted to a person who may be unwell.

Respect different goals: Individuals have different expectation from their job because they have different career goals. As much as you will communicate with the team members, you will understand the respective targets. Try and appreciate them and help them in achieving it. That's a true mentor.

Recognization System: The system that recognizes an employee's hard work and rewards them for it, is proven to be more productive and helps immensely building a stronger team. 

According to White Paper: Hacking Diversity with Inclusive Decision-Making study “Inclusive teams make better decisions up to 87% of the time. Teams that follow an inclusive process make decisions 2x faster with half of the meetings. Decisions made and executed by diverse teams delivered 60% better results.”

There are other innumerable benefits of D&I in building company culture for any organization. And the implementation of these small steps can make a huge difference when it comes to the profits of a company. D&I serves as a platform for the staff to celebrate each other and themselves and become more inclusive with each other which makes the organization attractive by strengthening a positive environment. 

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Topics: Diversity

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