Having lived and worked in four countries across four continents, the value of diversity in the workplace is not lost on me. From Canada to Hong Kong, South Africa and now the UK, the privilege of collaborating with diverse teams in charity and private sector organisations has been invaluable on both personal and professional levels. It’s likely plain to see why such experiences would be enriching to the individual, but how does diversity benefit an organisation?
In an ever more complex environment for both charities and businesses, organisations are challenged to remain competitive in order to further their goals – whether they are based upon social objectives or to increase the bottom line.
Building a diverse team can provide your organisation with concrete benefits, aside from fulfilling corporate social responsibility and good faith efforts for diversity and inclusion. Here are five reasons having cross-functional, multicultural, gender-balanced teams with varied education, skills and experience will provide your organisation with a key advantage:
- Better understand your market: As the landscape for both charities and businesses becomes more complex, your ability to understand and reach out to the individual needs of your service users and customers will be of paramount importance. As your market becomes increasingly diverse, having a workforce or board of trustees that reflects this will offer a competitive advantage in understanding these needs.
- Amplify innovation and creativity: Your diverse team will be comprised of people who offer unique insights and therefore generate more creative ideas to innovate and solve problems. The organisational culture that exudes diversity will also create an environment for employees to expand their own thinking through exposure to the new perspectives and concepts of their colleagues.
- Attract professional talent: Organisations that build a reputation for promoting diversity through equality, inclusion, mutual respect and recruitment based on meritocracy, attract those with exceptional calibre and potential who see such an environment as one to thrive in.
- Widen your networks: Not only will a diverse range of backgrounds in personnel increase diversity within your organisation, it will also provide your organisation with access to a vast network of intra- and inter-industry contacts. Each team member would have established networks of professional contacts whose knowledge, experience and expertise can be accessed to aid in problem solving, task completion and set new industry standards through collaborative dialogue.
- Diversity is celebrated: Organisations that successfully bring together diverse teams to meet objectives create enormous reputational goodwill in their communities. They also gain prestige through recognition by bodies such as the Excellence in Diversity Awards and the National Diversity Awards. Striving for excellence through diversity as the driving force may just be the most powerful way to communicate both internally and externally the principle that people are at the heart of any great endeavour.
The future of organisations across all sectors truly depends on the strength of their teams. Recruiting a diverse workforce or board is not about satisfying a quota or ticking off the boxes of a long list of random attributes. True diversity starts with an understanding of its value and the ambition to gain strength as an organisation through building a team of outstanding people with diverse ideas, cultures and skills.