Diversity: A Magic Bullet for Innovation, Retention, and Growth
Yes, we are still talking about diversity. Why? Because it seems we just can’t get it right when it comes to having across-the-board depth of diversity in our companies.
Diversity covers more than just race and ethnicity. Workplace diversity is all-encompassing. It includes race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age and generation, socio-economic status, religion, disability, and even vision and perspective – and it includes recognition and advancement regardless of any distinguishing demographic factors. In a nutshell, diversity demonstrates a company’s willingness to value people for themselves – to see differences as valuable and worthy of recruitment.
In a world of bottom lines and financial pressures, diversity is necessary to remain competitive. So why not consider these key approaches:
- Differing perspectives energize innovation. The best ideas often are discovered during the discussion of competing ideas – compromises and innovations that would not have been discovered otherwise.
- Millennials and Gen Xers expect and demand diversity. The youngest two generations value diversity exponentially more than any generation before them, and many of them are vocal about diversity being a key factor in their consumer and employment choices.
- Increased globalization demands diverse cultural knowledge, understanding, and cooperation. You can’t properly serve people you don’t understand. Employing people who understand your target markets is not enough; employing people who represent your target markets is fundamental.
The bottom line is simple: Diversity is essential to high performance in our modern economy. Companies that understand this and rise to the challenge simply outperform companies that do not.
Which kind of company will yours be?
As the CEO & Founder of East Tenth Group, Michelle leverages 25 years of business and experience as a strategic advisor and executive coach to help drive actionable people solutions and provide practical insights on business strategy to senior leaders. she and her team and are fiercely committed to the development and growth of people and companies because we believe that when people thrive, business thrives.
