Does workplace diversity actually improve productivity?

 In the last few years, major multinationals such as Google, Apple, HP, and Facebook have evidently increased their efforts to strengthen diversity in the workplace. Enhancing diversity and inclusion is the highest priority for over a quarter of leaders, as organizations seek to improve workplace culture in a stringently competitive recruiting market.

Given the scenario of the hiring industry at present, it’s no surprise that businesses, other than maintaining a positive workplace culture, are taking additional steps to ensure they remain attractive to not only potential employees but also aspirants belonging to institutes offering high-end specialized courses like post-graduate diploma in human resource management and diploma in financial management among others.

The important question that strikes our mind is, does diversity impact business? It turns out, diversity does pay! Over the past two decades, as researchers have sought to measure the economic effects of workplace diversity, a surprising yet anticipated body of study has emerged. Collectively, it highlights that diverse work environments boost culture, profitability, and public perception. Companies with diverse workforces every so often outdoes companies that do not. According to a study published by Gartner, by 2022, 75% of organizations with diverse as well as inclusive decision-making teams will surpass their financial targets.

While there are many more reasons to support the point and prove diversity is wise, the most crucial one remains that if a company is full of similar people, they are likely to think in similar ways. With more lines of thought comes fresh new ways of doing things. In short, the office environment becomes more productive since many new ideas fly about most of the time. Having diversity also helps in establishing stronger staff morale. When people from different backgrounds come together; they not only relate to another well but also begin to share a common goal; mostly with an aim to make it in a space where they are often overlooked. It has been observed that high staff morale promotes people to work hard for an organization and come to work on time, regularly. Another bonus is that diverse workers offer a company with great customer understanding. This in turn enables a productive business that helps in retaining customers all the time. If there’s an absence of diversity, then the company has fewer chances of empathizing with customers.

To reap benefits in the long run, companies must adopt an organized approach, one that facilitates diversity continually, from leadership to staffing and hiring to training and more. Not only that, b-schools offering relevant courses like post-graduate diploma in humanresource management or diploma in financial management must encourage diversity and inclusion and keep it as a core value to instill the right lessons among a diverse population of students!