The Importance of Improving Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

The workplace is going through major and rapid demographic shifts right now. The inflow of Millennials into the labor force, the effects of an aging workforce lingering longer, and the growing numbers of women entering the job market are all contributing to this variety. Companies that provide workplace services and can adapt to changes in their clients’ cultural diversity landscape by improving diversity and inclusion have a significant competitive edge.

Embrace Diversity or Get Left Behind

Minorities and migrants continue to encounter discrimination when looking for work and in the workplace, despite Europe’s multicultural heritage and anti-discrimination laws. According to a 2018 study by the European Network Against Racism, job applicants with foreign-sounding names had 30% lower chances of being invited to an interview in Belgium than those with similar profiles but Flemish-sounding names.

According to a 2019 study, white applicants in Germany had a statistical advantage of 20-40%, and white applicants in France and Sweden received 65-100% more callbacks for interviews than non-white candidates. COVID-19-induced lockdowns disproportionately impacted women, with job losses being larger in areas with strong female employment rates, and additional childcare responsibilities indicating a stronger impact on working moms.

Businesses that want to be recognized as leaders must step forward to help underrepresented people. Of course, the show must go on, and the decision to outsource is a constructive and welcome development. However, organizations must make an effort to hire a more diverse workforce to tackle the responsibilities at hand. Representation in all sectors of the workforce is critical, and businesses must now, more than ever, identify and fix gaps in their inclusion policies throughout their business and hiring strategy. Employers need to know how to stop racial injustices, exclusivity, and negative preconceptions in their professional relationships.

Establishing a Basic Diversity and Inclusion Policy

When outsourcing, a diversity and inclusion policy is critical for a variety of reasons. According to research, a diverse and inclusive workplace has many advantages, including faster revenue growth, increased innovation readiness, increased ability to recruit a varied talent pool, and 5.4 times higher employee retention. Moreover, several studies have indicated that increased diversity leads to superior business culture, leadership, and innovation.

Having a plan in place decreases the amount of uncertainty about how to ensure diverse hiring. However, developing a diversity and inclusion employment policy and strategy can be difficult and unclear. So, for firms wanting to embrace D&I in their culture, we’ve put together a few recommendations for adopting a diversity and inclusion strategy.

Hold Open Discussions Around the Topic

Diversity and inclusion strategies require an open and honest dialogue with your staff. Consider holding a meeting with immediate team members or entire departments to raise tough questions and encourage open and honest dialogue. “What does diversity imply to our company?” and “What are practical strategies to implement inclusion?” are two questions to consider. Incorporating teams not only delivers a message from management, but it also aids in gaining their support.

Leverage Conversation Tables and Council Groups

When people don’t understand one other, it’s easy for each party to dismiss the concerns of the other. This makes it impossible to start a productive conversation. So make an effort to start a discussion. Set up discussion tables where management and staff can share their experiences and points of view.

Look Into “Unconscious Bias” Training

The issue about biases is that they often form without our knowledge, and they might be difficult to spot from our own perspective point. Stereotyping and bias can have an impact on (and perhaps obstruct) recruitment, hiring, and contracting.

Bias education, training, and knowledge is a good place to start when trying to figure out where prejudice is present in a company’s environment. More inclusive and well-thought-out rules will follow from training your employees to detect and manage their own unconscious prejudices.

Identify Milestones

Begin with identifying milestones if you want to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace. These metrics are essential for developing strategic action plans that will help you improve.

One such benchmark is to increase the percentage of minority hires over a set period of time. For example, within six months, you can raise the number of qualified female tech-related roles by [x percent]. It’s also a good idea to increase the number of visible racial minorities on your sales staff. A realistic and actionable benchmark might be to increase the proportion by [x percent] within a year.

Working with a recruitment process outsourcing partner – like Noon Dalton – can help this process go more smoothly. Many RPO providers use data analytics to assist firms more easily and effectively detect holes in their D&I policies, set realistic goals, and employ the right talent on time.

Encourage Employee Referrals

Encourage diverse employees to refer eligible candidates as one strategy to boost the diversity of your staff. Implementing employee referral systems to promote diversity and inclusion can have major benefits, such as reducing hiring time and eliminating unnecessary screening tests, as well as demonstrating to diverse employees that their input and feedback are valued.

Because they are a part of the company’s success, current employees will feel appreciated and trusted. Meanwhile, because they will already know at least one person in the organization, referred employees will feel more at ease and engaged.

Consider Implementing “Blind Hiring”

Consider blind hiring as another approach for avoiding prejudice in the employment process. Personal information about an applicant is anonymized using this technique, which is often irrelevant to job performance and could lead to personal bias on the side of the hiring manager or recruiter.

Some recruitment tools, for example, can scrub a résumé or online profile of candidate names, photographs, university names, and other personal information. Pre-hire examinations to assess job-related abilities and knowledge are another example of blind recruiting practices. Blind hiring approaches that highlight the most qualified candidates, regardless of gender, age, or race, can be implemented with the support of a trusted RPO supplier.

Here’s How Diversity and Inclusion Improves the Workplace

Companies with high gender diversity outperform their competitors by 15%, according to Forbes. And it gets even better for ethnic diversity practitioners: they outperform their opponents by 35%.

According to the American Sociological Association, workplace diversity is a significant determinant of a company’s sales revenue and profitability. On average, companies with the most racial diversity generate 15 times more sales income than those with the least amount of racial variety.

Diverse personnel bring a wide range of life experiences and backgrounds to the table, which means they often see things from a different perspective. That new viewpoint can help you come up with new methods to tackle problems or solve challenges. When these disparate perspectives come together, it has the potential to outperform the competition in terms of innovation.

Diversity fosters innovation by cultivating a culture that values outside-the-box thinking. Companies that practice diversity are 70% more likely to break into a new market.