The Importance of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace

Today’s business focus is on the global stage, whether we like it or not. As such, it’s important that you think about the elements of your business in a global-minded way.

There’s been an increased focus on the need for cultural diversity in the workplace over the past few years, and it’s a concern that many business owners need to keep aware of.

Have you done your research on why a diverse culture in the workplace can be so important to a company? It’s not just about opportunity and meeting expectations – fostering a diverse workplace culture can actually benefit your business in many ways.

What are the benefits of diversity when it comes to a functioning workplace? Read on and we’ll walk you through everything that you need to know.

Defining Workplace Diversity

What does it mean to have a diverse culture in the workplace? Before we discuss the benefits of this kind of landscape, it’s worth digging into exactly what the term means.

After all, diversity is a term that is often loaded with all sorts of meaning, and it’s essential to unpack what we’re actually talking about.

Company culture refers to the underlying values that direct how people behave in an environment. Culture, in general, can be defined in the same way. There are a great many different cultures around the world.

These cultures are often the result of different perspectives, habits, and ways of being that are based on things like race, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, gender, and any other number of factors.

When we speak of seeking a diverse workplace, we are referring to creating a workplace that features a wide variety of these different perspectives.

Historically, many American companies have been predominantly white and male. Historically, opportunity was not equally afforded to minorities, women, and even those over a certain age.

In this sense, workplace diversity is seen as a goal to broader the possibility of opportunity across the country. It’s an attempt to balance a historically unbalanced system.

However, workplace diversity isn’t just about righting past wrongs. Many detailed studies have shown that running a diverse office can better equip a business of any size for success.

We’ll break down a few of the reasons why this is below.

The Benefits of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace

Today, many businesses and companies across the world are running more diverse offices. Attempts have been made to diversify the perspectives occurring under the roof of enterprises big and small.

The results from these attempts have been thrilling to look at. There is a lot aspiring entrepreneurs can learn by looking into these modern, diverse workplaces.

A Diverse Workplace is More Productive & Efficient

When you work with a diverse team, you spread the work that is needed across a wide range of different perspectives. A diverse team has a much wider array of experience, expertise, and problem-solving approaches than a team all culled from the same background.

These varying perspectives and working methods can help to create a creative environment – one that can produce solutions to your company’s problems like no other.

It’s amazing what we can do when we work together, and how one new perspective can unlock new ideas within ourselves. Homogenous teams will come up with the same solutions and approach problems in the same way, while a diverse team can challenge both expectations and ways of working.

You can’t get ahead of a competitive workplace by always thinking within the box, and running a diverse workplace will be essential in creating new and creative solutions.

Sure, a completely homogenous team might run with fewer disagreements and difficult conversations. But it’s that exact level of ease that falls companies to fall behind.

It can take difficult conversations, compromises, and perspectives to push forward and create innovative new solutions. A diverse team will create the environment to do this, a homogenous team simply won’t.

If you want to have a workplace environment that is creative, innovative, and robust? Hiring a diverse staff is a must.

Running a Diverse Workplace Helps Recruitment and Retention

Most workers understand the benefits of a diverse workplace and work to seek one out. One way to ensure you’ll miss out on some of the best talent out there is to not present a working environment that new employees want to join up with.

For most workers, the level of diversity and inclusion is a huge consideration in picking a place to apply, according to a study by CNBC. Over 80% of respondents said that diversity in a workplace was incredibly important to their impression of a potential employer.

If you’re planning to remain competitive in your field, you’ll need to get the bet on your team. The only way to ensure you’ll be able to do that is by running the kind of workplace that these employees want to be a part of.

Of course, that can be difficult to start out doing if you don’t already have a diverse workplace to start with. You’ll need to show prospective employees that you’re committed to increasing diversity and inclusion during your hiring process.

Once your team is together, this inclusion will also help to retain employees over the long run. Employees prefer to work in diverse environments, and happier employees will stick around at your business for a much lengthier branch of time.

A loss of employees can be one of the biggest expenses and concerns for a business of any size.

It can be incredibly costly to seek out and train new employees. As such, it’s important to do anything and everything you can to help retain your current batch of employees.

Improve Your Company’s Reputation

Workplace diversity isn’t just important to your prospective employees, it’s also important to the general public at large. Consumers want to support businesses that are doing the work to make the world a better place.

Running a company with a diverse, healthy work environment is one way to help reach this common goal.

Customers also prefer engaging with a diverse workforce when they come into contact with a business. This will be important whether they come into brick-and-mortar locations, speak with customer services representatives, or engage with your team in some other way.

A diverse workforce will allow your team to engage with a wide array of potential customers in a more personal and direct way. Shared experiences and understanding between your customers and your team can go a long way.

How to Create a Diverse Company Culture

Just because you understand the importance of a diverse workspace doesn’t mean you’ll know how to properly create one at your own place of work.

Pre-Employment

It starts, as you can imagine, at the hiring process. It’s important to put your best foot forward at this stage of interaction with best new employees. When you craft statements talking about company culture and projected future, make sure you mention your goals regarding workplace diversity.

Post your job listing on websites that highlight and specialize in diverse hiring. A diverse web of workers can’t apply for the job if they aren’t aware that it exists, after all.

You also might consider offering targeted scholarships or internships. Providing these for underrepresented minorities can help usher these individuals into your business. If they excel, they could quickly move up through the company.

During Employment

Fostering a healthy work environment also means taking steps to encourage diversity and diversity of thought in your workplace environment. If you’ve typically been running a homogenous workplace environment and are looking t change things, there might be some growing pains adjusted with this change.

Your existing team might not be used to taking into consideration these new ways of working or these new perspectives.

You may want to consider having diversity training for your executive staff. This kind of training may surprise them, and reveal some shortcomings they have in managing differences in the workplace.

It can also be beneficial to connect your new and diverse workforce with your existing team, bridging differences and bringing everyone together for a common goal.

Running a few team building events can help everyone to get to know one another on a personal level. You can also operate a mentorship program, which connects new employees with old ones and crafts one-on-one connections.

Creating Your Ideal Workplace Culture

If you’re hoping to succeed in a competitive marketplace, you have no choice but to consider the importance of cultural diversity in the workplace.

For more help creating a diverse work environment to help your employees succeed, please see the resource below.