Diversity and Inclusion has become a growing topic across all industries, with focus on Civil Rights and Gender pay equality. More and more companies have been releasing their diversity numbers, with employees looking to hold employers accountable on any pledges to become more inclusive.
Representation has been a growing topic amongst employers for decades, but the shift in language to ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ is a more recent change. For clarity, Diversity refers to the make up of an organisation – how many different groups are represented as members of the team. Inclusion focuses on the involvement of these different groups – how much their contributions, presence and perspectives are valued and integrated into the organisation.
The Benefits of Diversity & Inclusion
The core reasons to strive for a more inclusive workforce are fostering more diverse ideas, greater innovation, and ethically making efforts to represent as many backgrounds and life experiences in your team as possible. But there are also a wealth of commercial benefits.
According to Deloitte, diverse companies enjoy 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee. Even without a focus on cash flow, Gartner found that inclusive teams improve team performance by up to 30 percent. Any organisations seeking similar benefits will want to implement a more expansive recruitment search for future hires.
An expanded recruitment search that features more diverse candidates – including background, ethnicity, age, etc- widens your talent pool and increases your chances of finding the best hire. It goes without saying that if you don’t evolve your recruiting process, you’ll always recruit the same types of people. As the world is changing, increasingly employers need to be reviewing their recruitment strategies to keep pace.
Some organisations prefer to champion diversity through upskilling initiatives – by providing their employees with access to career development that will help them to progress into more senior roles with the organisation. But for many organisations, having a diverse & inclusive recruitment strategy will also make a positive change, and catch the attention of applicants from broader backgrounds and perspectives.
Diversity a priority for Job seekers
Diversity is an increasing focus amongst job seekers as well as employers. A Glassdoor Survey found that 67 percent of workers consider diversity when seeking employment. This consideration becomes even more significant for minority groups: nearly a third of employees and job seekers stated they would not apply for a job with a lack of diversity amongst its workforce.
Candidates are looking for signs of diversity on your website, as well as across your online profiles, but they will also talk to friends and read reviews on platforms such as Glassdoor for a real insider view. If a diverse workforce is important to your organisation, its crucial to make sure employees are aware of any initiatives, and how they can get involved. Not only will this help to champion a lasting culture of diversity, but it will help you to recruit even more diverse talent.
On July 29th, we held a free webinar looking at how UK organisations can evolve their Diversity and Inclusion strategies, while closing the Digital Skills gap and improving productivity. With a range of guests from different industries and backgrounds, you can watch the recording below.