When it comes to hiring your team, regardless of if you are building a team from scratch, restructuring a team, or simply expanding your team, you have to be thinking about diversity.
If you are hiring diversity in your team to “do the right thing”, then you have the approach all wrong. Diversity is so many things, it’s not just about having a mix of people in because it might look good, it’s about boosting your performance.
The fact is that diverse teams generally produce better results. Back in 2015 a report by McKinsey on 366 public companies reported that those in the top 25% for ethnic and racial diversity in management, we’re on average 35% more likely to have above average financial returns.
When you think about diversity, what comes to your head? Ethnicity is probably up there, along with sex. It’s about so much more; race, religion, origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, abilities, disabilities, language, ages, and so much more.
When you have a diverse team in every aspect, you have people on your team from all of the different categories above. Having those people with different thoughts through religion, their age, country of origin, sexual orientation, not to mention the languages they speak and their age presents you with unique opportunity to have a huge range of feedback. If you are in the business of making products, why would this not be helpful?
Those diverse thoughts about your products and services make their way into conversations before you build them, incorporating those thoughts just became cheaper to do and gave you an edge against your competitors.
Facts from large scale surveys back up five key benefits of having diverse teams within your business.
- Increased innovation and creativity
- Better decision making and problem solving
- Increased profits
- Higher employee engagement
- Better reputation
Diversity in the workplace sometimes has a tag of political correctness, some feel it’s just a fad. In addition to the McKinsey report, other reports and studies from Boston Consulting Group, Harvard Business Review, Cloverpop, Deloitte Australia, and PwC, all provide evidence that says, this is not a fad, diversity provides you with a real competitive edge.
Summary
By making your team and your company more diverse and inclusive, your team achieves greater engagement, better creativity and innovation as well as greater success.
So next time you are making a hiring decision, throw out any pre-concieved ideas about an individual, think about how it will truly improve your business.
Martyn Coupland 