Leadership | What Is Diversity? How Diversity Increase Productivity?

 Preface

Companies of all sizes are now realizing that diversity is not just a moral imperative. Employees favor diverse organizations over their homogenous competitors and innovation depends on the viewpoints of many. Usually, diversity was not the term that is considered associated with increased productivity. Oftentimes, the term came with terms such as troubles, chaos, or mess. Not every boss like diverse employees or different environments they are unfamiliar with. Many business owners prefer to hire, interact, and promote candidates that are pretty much like them because those people act and think likewise. However, the truth is like global climate change, diversity actually can increase productivity. So, why diversity is able to increase productivity and how do leaders manage, lead, and finally benefit from diversity? That's what we are going to learn. But, we have to define what is diversity first. 

What Is Diversity?

Just like Biodiversity refers to the variety of living species on Earth, diversity is any dimension that can be used to differentiate groups and people from one another. In short, it is what makes people different from each other such as age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, education, and national origin.

How Diversity Increase Productivity?

Diverse groups consider a broader range of ideas and produce more possible solutions and resulting in better decision-making. It is obvious that people who live in different environments tend to have very different life experiences and multiple perspectives. The same math question has more different solutions and more solutions mean it is much more likely to hit the target or find an effective and efficient one from such a broader range of ideas. Diversity also leads people to consider multiple and more complex approaches. This means greater creativity, innovation, flexibility in formulating strategy, better problem-solving in implementation, and more original ideas. In addition, diversity throughout management levels creates a competitive advantage by learning from different perspectives. 

Moreover, workplace diversity promotes employee engagement and productivity by helping employees feel accepted and included. Thus, increasing their satisfaction at work and making them more engaged, productive, loyal, and lower turnover rates. As the world becomes more multicultural, companies with a diverse workforce are also in a better position to identify and develop solutions that satisfy the needs and demands of consumers.

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"Biodiversity is important to most aspects of our lives. It includes the many basic needs humans obtain from biodiversity such as food, fuel, shelter, and medicine. Further, ecosystems provide crucial services such as pollination, seed dispersal, climate regulation, water purification, nutrient cycling, and control of agricultural pests."(What is biodiversity? why is it important?: AMNH).

"Just like Biodiversity is important to most aspects of our lives, diversity in our workplace is an enormous source of energy inside an organization."

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I believe that as a leader, high emotional intelligence is an essential characteristic for dealing with diversity since diverse groups consider a broader range of ideas and produce more possible solutions and resulting in better decision-making. 

Leaders must be humble and value learning and knowledge while deemphasizing status and position. Thus, when employees need to feel valued, included, and encouraged to make contributions, they are more likely to speak their minds about what needs to be done. I reckon that increased diversity has been a moral case for action, a moral code that has been written inside the core processor unit. 

However, I found it is not as easy as just hiring diverse people. In the United States, positive discrimination is an affirmative action that is legal when used to recruit underrepresented or minority groups. However, that doesn't mean it is without risk. In some cases, even the person who has benefited from positive discrimination can take legal action against their employer. Legislation, including the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, safeguard the rights of people in protected classes from discriminatory hiring practices. Moreover, even if you have done great recruitment, it is just the beginning of the real challenge, building a positive culture.

In conclusion, I believe building a diverse workforce is the right thing to do and I will definitely adopt it for my own business in the future. Start with hiring and culture. Diversity hiring is legal in the US but only when it is done properly. Therefore, I have to set inclusion goals for my diversity hiring, according to the ACLU(American Civil Liberties Union). Next, building a positive culture for them is a necessary step for moving from diversity to belonging and embracing diverse thinking.

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References

Biodiversity. National Geographic Society. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2022, from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/biodiversity 

How to build a diverse and powerful culture: By Gustavo Razzetti. RSS. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2022, from https://www.fearlessculture.design/blog-posts/how-to-build-a-diverse-and-powerful-culture 

Inclusion targets: What's legal? ACLU of Southern California. (2019, February 26). Retrieved July 16, 2022, from https://www.aclusocal.org/en/inclusion-targets-whats-legal 

Sustainability, N. for B. (2022, March 25). How diversity increases productivity. Network for Business Sustainability (NBS). Retrieved July 15, 2022, from https://nbs.net/how-diversity-increases-productivity/ 

What is biodiversity? why is it important?: AMNH. American Museum of Natural History. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2022, from https://www.amnh.org/research/center-for-biodiversity-conservation/what-is-biodiversity 

What is Diversity & Inclusion? Global Diversity Practice. (2019, October 25). Retrieved July 15, 2022, from https://globaldiversitypractice.com/what-is-diversity-inclusion/