The Benefits of Workforce Diversity in Today’s Economy
Last week I discussed the importance of cultural competencies in our global economy. But what about diversity within your organization? Workforce diversity is not just a buzzword; it’s the norm for doing good business today.
Over at Global Wire Associates, we pride ourselves on making sure we hire the best and brightest from all walks of life. Under each of our job openings, we list the following:
Global Wire Associates is an equal opportunity employer and committed to workforce diversity. We encourage applications from qualified women, ethnic/racial minorities, people with disabilities and those from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as recognized by the United Nations.
Unfortunately, even in 2015, there are still many people who don’t get it. So here are my reasons why you need to care about workforce diversity.
Diverse Employees, Diverse Perspectives – Studies back up that the more diverse your staff is, the more success you will have in business outcomes. Bringing employees together from different life experiences can support innovation and more effective problem-solving. The same is true about diversity in business ownership and management, as it helps to increase employment and economic outcomes.
Avoid Embarrassing Work Mistakes – Even today you still hear humiliating stories about how a high profile person, a newspaper or the marketing department at a company do something that is perceived as being offensive to a particular group of people, whether it is race, class, gender, sexual orientation or disability. One of the benefits of having a diverse staff is that someone with cultural awareness is more likely to call out a potential faux pas before the world sees it and save the company from embarrassment. In this situation, it might be time for the staff to have a diversity training session from the human resources department.
Other People Want To Do Business With You – Clients and vendors nowadays like to do business with other companies that value workforce diversity and understand that qualified workers come in every stripe. Also, people are more likely to want to do business with companies that have staff that look like them too, since clients and vendors are also just as diverse. With that being said…
A Globalized Workplace Matters Today – Technology has made the world a smaller place. With one click, we can get services and products from anywhere on the planet. So that means your customers could be any race, culture, religion or nationality. It is also very important to not offend international clients, like making light of the serious deforestation crisis in Brazil or trivializing human rights abuses in Tibet. In today’s economy, businesses are expected to have globally-minded employees that understand intercultural communication.