This Is How Diversity Benefits Your Organization

The topic of diversity in the workplace has been gaining traction for years. Now more than ever because of social movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo as well as documented financial gains, HR departments and management continue prioritizing diverse and inclusive workforces. As the topic of diversity has grown, it's scope has also broadened from the original protected groups, adding things like class, education level, thinking styles, and many other unique aspects of a person.

Here are three reasons creating a diverse team will benefit your organization.

#1 – Diversity increases productivity and creativity      

According to a study done by MIT,  “greater social diversity implies a greater spread of experience, which could add to the collective knowledge of a group of office workers and make the unit perform more effectively.” This really speaks for itself: people with different backgrounds and experiences will tackle an issue from different angles, which increases the likelihood that a problem will be solved more quickly. With less time spent on issues and road bumps, more time can be spent getting things done.

Diversity also allows employees to get creative with their solutions and ideas. The Harvard Business Review reports that “diverse team composition does seem to confer an advantage when it comes to generating a wider range of original and useful ideas.” Interestingly enough, “such benefits disappear once the team is tasked with deciding which ideas to select and implement.”

One thing to look out for when creating a diverse team is to make sure the team has a solid leader in place to make the final decision on which ideas to run with. With a diverse team, the leader or manager could have an unconscious (or conscious) bias against certain members of the team. As long as everyone involved is aware of this danger and is looking out to stop it before it starts, things should run smoothly. To read more about unconscious bias, visit this blog by SkillPath blogger, Brenda Smyth.

Learn more about DEI when your register for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace, a live, virtual seminar.

#2 – Diversity reduces fear     

The Harvard Business Review conducted a study last year that found cognitively diverse groups outperformed more homogenous groups. The term “cognitive diversity” is used broadly in this study but is essentially used to mean people with different backgrounds and viewpoints. Groups made up of, say, only engineers were outperformed by interdepartmental groups.

The study posits that the homogenous groups “have [a] limited ability to see things differently, engage in different ways…or create new options”. It is believed that homogenous groups discourage unique thinking because humans tend to want to fit in. We like to go along with the crowd and fit in. However, in diverse groups where everyone sticks out, there’s less of a fear of being the only outlier.

Think of it this way: when two people have a wide gap between experiences, the two will have no choice but to bridge the gap by working their ways from opposite ends to the middle. If they’re both in the same department with the same race, gender, background, etc., they’d be starting in the middle together, which often turns into a “We’ve always done it this way before” situation that can stymie creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving. 

#3–Diversity creates engagement, which dramatically reduces employee turnover      

It’s estimated that replacing an employee costs between 100% and 300% of the salary the replaced employee made when still employed. For even mid-level employees making $30,000 a year, it could cost almost $100,000 to replace them. With such a financial burden involved, reducing employee turnover is an important task for HR.

Peers and managers should be invested in retaining employees because, well, they know the job. It can take one to two years for a new employee to reach the productivity levels of an existing employee.  Less time is spent on getting to know how to do a certain job, meaning less work is placed on other employees in the meantime.

From a diversity standpoint, having a diverse workforce can increase job satisfaction. In the same MIT study mentioned earlier, researchers found that in “offices where people thought the firm was accepting of diversity…they were happier and more cooperative.” Happy, cooperative co-workers create a positive work culture that employees will be less likely to want to leave.  “When you have an inclusive corporate culture,” Business News Wire writes, “recruiting top talent becomes easier, group processes will be enhanced, which means employees are more likely to stay.”

Whether your goal at work is to increase a company’s output or company morale, diversity is going to have a positive effect on your company.