Yes, it’s true! Diverse roads sometimes lead to the same destination. Ignoring the importance of diversity in the workforce is a mistake that every organization, regardless of their size, has to avoid if they want to be healthy and prosperous. A diversity initiative helps you to embrace difference and change through new ideas, cultures and backgrounds. Diversity also enables you to create a workforce with new attitudes that boosts creativity and satisfies the needs of the organization. Take a look at some initiatives to take into account in order to bring diversity in your workforce.
Increased Awareness
Introducing diversity in your workforce is a great thing, but how do you define it? How does your organization understand diversity? Is your team open to difference and change? Does the technology recruiter you work with share the same diversity initiative? How about your employees? Are they onboard with your efforts? Before you take action, you must have a clear picture of how your company is going to be affected and how your staff will benefit from diversity. Only then can everyone embrace and adhere to the concept of diversity that you wish to adopt.
Complete Adoption
A common mistake that companies make is that they focus on implementing diversity only until a placement is made. In order to create the right mentality around diversity, you need to make it a part of your organization’s culture. If, for example, you hire an employee from a different ethnicity group, make sure that you educate yourself and your team around the customs and traditions of that group. Are there holidays that you need to be aware of? How about specific communication manners that you need to respect? Once you become adaptive to diversity, you make it part of your company culture.
Constant Assessment
Once you usher diversity into your workforce, you need to make sure that you track and measure its efficiency and effectiveness for your organization. Using metrics allows you to track employee diversity and evaluate a return on your investment. Has creating a more diverse workplace given you a competitive advantage? Try to use both qualitative and quantitative types of assessment. Once you have a clear picture of how diversity works for your company, then you are able to examine whether your policies are paying off or if you need to redefine your diversity strategy in order to be more successful.
The Other Side of the Coin
It takes two hands to clap. Keep that in mind when you try to bring diversity in your workforce. You can have the perfect diversity strategy in place, one that is completely accepted and followed by your team, but it is important to understand the “diverse norms” of the candidates as well. For example, not everyone is going to accept a position based solely on the offered salary, but they might have other priorities like a healthy working environment or more opportunity for career growth. Similarly, a millennial candidate has different aspirations than a senior candidate. It is important that you are aware of diversity variables like these and other diversity components that might subsist or not in the local markets you operate.
General Support
While it is crucial that your organization and staff have a clear understanding of and completely adopt your diversity policies, it is also significant that the IT staffing firm you work with is supportive of your diversity values. Make sure that your technology recruiter is a diversity enthusiast and that they are bias-free throughout the recruiting process. Their goal must be to bring diversity in your workforce. Partner with an IT staffing firm that ensures candidates are treated fairly during the application and screening processes.
Key Takeaways:
1. Define and understand diversity before embracing it for your company
2. Make diversity culture part of your organization and ensure that everyone complies with it
3. Track and measure your diversity efforts and redefine your diversity strategy if needed
4. Try to understand the “diverse norms” of the candidates
5. Partner with a technology recruiter that treats candidates fairly throughout the recruiting process