According to top consultants McKinsey & Company, diversity makes good business sense. Their research shows that companies with the most diverse workforces outperform similar companies financially. What does your company need to do to achieve this competitive advantage? Measure diversity!
How Does HR Define Diversity?
Human Resources departments manage diversity in order to be compliant with EEOC and employment law. While some people think of diversity as ethnicity, U.S. law makes it illegal to discriminate against an employee or potential employee based on a number of factors: “race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.”
Legalities aside, HR knows that thinking of diversity only as a means of compliance is shortsighted. There are positive aspects that a diverse workforce brings to the organization.
What Does Workforce Diversity Add To The Business Mix?
A diverse workforce brings varied backgrounds and experiences to complement the brainstorming and problem-solving process. People with different knowledge, skills and abilities have a better chance of suggesting new and exciting ways to accomplish a task or solve a problem than people who know or do only the exact same things as each other.
Depending on the size or type of the business, there may be one population that holds a majority in your company; it’s human nature to gravitate to like-minded people. But if members of one population dominate a leadership team, that company is going to continue to conduct business the same way they always have. A mindset of “same” will limit opportunities and increase risk related to stagnation. Pursuing new ways of doing business is always going to be the hallmark of organizational success over the long term.
Add Diversity Metrics To Other Workforce Topics For A Complete Picture
Workforce analytics will show you how a lack of diversity may be holding your company back from reaching its full potential. While diversity clearly matters, it is only one slice of the pie. ZeroedIn examines all of your workforce systems to create a complete picture of patterns, trends and insights you wouldn’t see otherwise.
