Gender, ethnicity and age immediately come to mind when speaking of diversity in the workplace. Diversity actually encompasses a wide variety of differences. From an HR perspective, it’s important to understand how diversity affects leadership, talent acquisition and employee engagement.

Cultural Diversity and Your Company’s Core Values

Culture refers to values, norms, and traditions. It is the way people perceive, think, interact, behave, and make judgments. A company’s core values reflect the principles, beliefs and philosophy of how a business operates. An example might be that one company values excellence while another may value innovation.

Gender, ethnicity and age immediately come to mind when speaking of diversity in the workplace. Diversity actually encompasses a wide variety of differences. From an HR perspective, it’s important to understand how diversity affects leadership, talent acquisition and employee engagement.

Cultural Diversity and Your Company’s Core Values

Culture refers to values, norms, and traditions. It is the way people perceive, think, interact, behave, and make judgments. A company’s core values reflect the principles, beliefs and philosophy of how a business operates. An example might be that one company values excellence while another may value innovation.

Cultural diversity and core values are key recruiting and employee retention tools. When hiring managers interview potential candidates they must also consider how an organization can leverage cultural differences to align with the company’s core values.

Why Diversity Matters:

 

• Wider Talent Pool: Back in the 1970s and 1980s symphony orchestras changed their hiring process by using blind auditions. This new screening process inadvertently increased a woman’s probability to advance past preliminary rounds by 50%. Similar outcomes can be compared to a more recent study with female coders in technology.

 

• Innovation: Looking beyond inherent differences, companies who utilize a diverse pool of experiences see higher performance rates and increased innovation.

 

• Financial: In a two-year research study by Bersin Deloitte, companies who align diversity to their talent strategies have higher cash flow and experience better financial outcomes.

 

Strategies, Skills and Training:

 

• Align diversity and inclusion practices to business objectives. Manage diversity as a strategy to maximize the potential of all employees to carry out a company’s vision.

 

• Awareness as a skillset that can be taught as part of leadership development and employee training activities. Teaching awareness can also help increase sales interactions, customer service and employee engagement.

 

• Seek out training opportunities and share knowledge throughout your organization. Having a better understanding for diversity can help organizations avoid unintended discrimination liabilities and foster out-of-the-box thinking among employees.

 

StaffScapes is your leading professional employer organization for training, compliance and procedures. Contact us to learn more about how we can help implement effective HR strategies to your business values.