Article: Nurturing talent in a diverse universe

Learning & Development

Nurturing talent in a diverse universe

Its time the Indian corporate world adopts the emerging trend of flexible and diverse workplaces to reap its multi-hued benefits
Nurturing talent in a diverse universe

Today, enterprises can be divided into two major categories--the ones that need to profit while they are young (start-ups) and the ones that never want to age (older enterprises). Either way, business accentuation is about being deft and nimble enough to rapidly react to developing market openings. At the central point of any such organisation is a workforce that is agile and diverse.

Today’s market leader isn't controlled by the number of resources under control, but how varied and successful these resources are.

In India, workforce diversity is about ethnic foundations and geographical origins. We require less of engineers who can write codes and more individuals with assorted qualities in ideas, methodologies, and moral values. Information researchers, artists, physicists or performers—the technologists of tomorrow need not be a splendid software engineer but rather a superb personality who is basically great at what he/ she does. Technologies aren't limited to organizations any longer and organizations are conceived worldwide. They need to succeed quick or fail fast. As a result, they stress on exploring diverse ideas in the shortest time possible. 

Sticking to the age-old beliefs of hiring will result in a culturally inactive workforce. On the other hand, continually seeking new cultural shifts just for the sake of it will dissolve core organizational culture. Diversity needs expertise and social leadership is about craftsmanship. It is a great deal more than ticking check boxes amid employing.

Leadership must redefine the culture and ensure every employee in the company reflects a fresh outlook. This can be enforced by the following:

  • Hire invigorating and bolder individuals who are skilled and complement your present culture. They are the ones who might challenge status quo and subtly graduate your present culture. Culture is about influencing others and getting impacted by others.

  • Disagreements are as critical as accordance. Encourage controlled, level-headed discussions and pressures to think beyond comfortable environments. No culture can flourish if it's exclusive.

  • Accept differences in opinions. Quit regarding them as an HR issue that should be tended to. Prepare groups to shun ego and be more inclusive of differing opinions.

  • Limit hiring of individuals who believe in acting within watertight compartments. Rather, search for individuals who are about ‘getting things done’.

Not being 'genuinely diverse' could lead to terrible consequences in an organization. When Mr. N R Narayana Murthy expressed that Indian IT organizations need to quit sending employees on H1-B visas and concentrate on hiring locally in the US, he was acknowledging that the Indian IT industry has largely been lagging behind its competitors when it comes to adopting a culturally diverse workplace. 

A great deal of biases intrinsically impact people who make up an organization; these are hard to pinpoint but they do have an effect. Harvard University offers a free 'Implicit Organisation Test' that evaluates a person's conditioned reactions to different culturally diverse challenges. And the result it produces can be really an eye-opener to most of us! This is a decent tool to assess how receptive to diversity one is and do a course correction if required.

It’s high time that the Indian corporate world wakes up and smells the coffee. The game has changed. The market won't ever be local again, and business leadership ought to adapt and propel according to this change.

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Topics: Learning & Development, Technology

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