February 26, 2019

Many hands make lighter work. And many minds—make brighter ideas! Especially when those minds come from different backgrounds and skill sets. The more diverse your workforce, the wider the range of viewpoints you’ll have within your organization. This can help to drive creativity and innovation through a depth of thoughts and ideas. Ideally, a diverse workplace will help you prevent stagnation and improve the advancement of your business.

Six Ways to Champion Diversity

So how can you infuse a wider range of employees into your business? Consider all of the following:

  1. Keep an open mind. Expand your definition of diversity. Think beyond culture to religion, gender, age, and physical ability. A person’s perception shapes the way they interact with the world, and this is determined by all the different factors that make everyone unique. It’s our individuality that brings different points of view to the table.
  2. Expand your recruitment scope. You can broaden your candidate options when you hire over a wider geographic range. Luckily, technology such as phone interviews, video interviews, and telecommuting allow you to greatly expand your candidate and employee base.
  3. Promote inclusion. Though you may attempt to be diverse in your hiring methods, does your workplace support career longevity? You can promote free idea sharing by improving everyone’s comfort level at work. All ideas are good ideas and mistakes are allowed—policies such as these encourage engagement through inclusion. Plus, they help you avoid turnover.
  4. Provide diversity training. Do all your employees know what diversity means? You can hold your current staff to a higher standard through diversity training. It can be refreshing to help your workers realize the importance of respecting each other’s differences.
  5. Work through disagreements. Differing opinions will, of course, lead to disagreements, but this can help you land on stronger end products. Keep an open door policy when your workers disagree, listen to all sides and help your employees work through arguments. Encourage good communication, respect, and compromise.
  6. Offer flexible scheduling. Flexible work hours, on-site childcare and telecommuting are additional perks that help you include even more potential groups in your workforce.

Work with your recruiter

For help locating, hiring and onboarding new staff, your recruiter is an invaluable resource. She has access to both active and passive candidates and will work with you to understand your staffing needs and find workers who fit. Many staffing agencies also provide training and can help you get workers trained and ready for a more diverse workforce.

Check out Inter-Connect

We’ll work with you to place highly qualified light industrial and office/clerical staff. To learn more, contact us today!

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