The promise of diversity is that people with different experiences, perspectives and thinking styles combine and collaborate to create a stronger, more successful work product.

In fact, research shows that diverse teams make better business decisions up to 87% of the time. A 2018 study by a top management consulting firm shows that companies with diverse leadership outperform companies with non-diverse leadership in both innovation and financial performance.

While there’s clearly work to do in building bridges and promoting our commonalities to reduce our tribal differences – we hear stories from many employees that go through our courses who have seen the value of diversity first hand.

Why Diversity In The Workplace Matters

Here’s how we’ve heard employees talk about their understanding of why diversity is important for business:

“We have diversity in nationality of people where each one comes from a place and a culture that help us understand more the diversity of customers we have.”

“Following good discipline of Involving the entire team to make collective decisions and planning helped my team deliver critical projects. Another team I work on lacked clarity and was less organized with sprint work and repeatedly missed delivery milestones and project delays.”

Diversity Builds Better Teams

We also hear from employees who seem to just appreciate how great it can be to work in a diverse environment:

“My team has to resolve problems on a regular basis. If everyone thinks alike then they all solve the problem in a similar way and if a problem is seen as difficult then it will be difficult for all team members. A team made up of people that think in different ways solves problems faster with more creative solutions.”

“Each person on our team is different in one way or another and that continually helps us make better decisions. Especially working with some many different cultures every day.”

People learn through stories. So soliciting and sharing stories about the value people get from working on diverse teams and employees’ perception of the business value of diversity is extremely effective in getting a workforce to actively promote diversity and inclusion.

Diversity and Inclusion Resources

Want to learn more? Check out these diversity and inclusion resources:

  • [Webinar] What Savvy Leaders Know About Workplace Culture. Learn how a shared language that allows open and authentic communication based on company values makes it much easier to resolve conflicts and tackle challenging conversations across a diverse organization.
  • [Checklist] Unbiased Recruitment. Practical tips for creating an unbiased hiring process.
  • [Template] EEO Policy TemplateA one-page template which efficiently outlines your company’s non-discrimination policy.

 

Ready to take the next step? Preview our Diversity and Inclusion course.