The acronym DEI gets batted around workplaces every day now. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mean different things to different people, but a diverse workforce provides tangible benefits in the workplace.
While most businesses focus their DEI on hiring, it extends to the overall workplace culture. A consultancy like Unsiloed – Inclusion and Diversity Consulting Firm can help develop this overall program, but why would you invest in such a program? Your business can glean four key benefits from developing a DEI program.
- Revenue and Productivity Increases. According to Statistics Canada, improving diversity by just one percent improved revenue by 2.4 percent. It also boosted productivity by 0.5 percent. Another recent study by McKinsey backed up those numbers. Worldwide, companies with culturally and ethnically diverse boards of directors experienced a greater likelihood of higher profits – 43 percent. Those in the bottom quartile for diversity scored 29 percent less likely to earn above-average profits. When a business communicates from a target audience to a target audience, it betters its reach.
- Ramped up innovation. A diverse workforce tackles ideas in different ways due to the wide range of cultural influences, norms, and mores. Drawing ideas from a diverse pool of experience instead of a homogeneous one offers more innovative approaches. This, too, helps diverse businesses capture more of their target audience and can help them reach new target audiences to grow sales and distribution. A diverse team of employees makes better decisions faster and their decisions perform better.
- Increased employee satisfaction. A business also needs experienced, savvy, well-educated employees to succeed. Attracting the best workers means offering the best workplace. A DEI-focused workplace does that. Your business can enhance its retention of top talentwhile drawing in new top talent. When you employ the best-quality people and you ensure their job satisfaction, you can depend on them to stay put. Doing DEI right ensures co-workers get along better. It reduces workplace conflict and improves relationships at all levels of the business’s hierarchy.
- Better business reputation.Because DEI has hit the front burner in nearly every industry, a business can enhance its reputation by offering a diverse workplace. While consumers tend to point out the best business for DEI on review sites such as Google My Business and the Better Business Bureau, businesses can contribute to their employee’s satisfaction by offering awards to their employees for diversity and inclusion initiatives.
In business, people tend to focus rightly on what makes a business perform better. DEI does that. Implementing a diverse and inclusive workplace for your business’s employees improves your bottom line, helps you attract and retain top talent, increases innovation, and helps you earn a better business reputation. That’s worth the investment.
