5 ways diversity and inclusion add value to organizations

It goes without saying that the past 18 months have incited change in nearly every corner of our lives. The ways we socialize, work and communicate have all been deeply affected by the pandemic. 

However, social activism has incited another important change: the way we view the world through a new lens focused on diversity and inclusivity. Aside from diversity and inclusivity in the workplace simply being the right thing to do, customers are increasingly considering it as a reason to choose one company over another, and organizations are seeing substantial value added from an inclusivity-first mindset. 

Along every step of the Virtual Gurus growth journey, embracing diversity has remained our core value. Bobbie Racette, our founder and CEO, built Virtual Gurus with an inclusivity-first mindset that has been integral in growing Virtual Gurus into a multi-million dollar organization. 

In this article, we highlight the five ways diversity and inclusion add value to organizations. Using these tips to implement an inclusivity-first mindset in your organization will help you gain a competitive edge and help drive revenue growth. 

1. Wider pool of talent and resources

A focus on diversity and inclusion shows benefits for organizations right at the start of the hiring process. While advertising job postings and reviewing applications throughout the hiring process, traditional forms of hiring lead to the same talent pool applying for each position. By implementing diversity and inclusion in your hiring process, your job postings will yield a wider variety of specialized skill sets for your positions. 

There are several resources that explain how to best apply diversity and inclusion in the hiring process. By rethinking your hiring process, including job advertisements, on-the-job mentorships, diverse hiring committees and inclusive interview questions, you can fully unlock the potential of hiring the most capable and excellent team for your organization. 

2.Creativity and innovation

Recent studies have shown how diversity and inclusion in the workplace increases creativity and innovation in organizations. By ensuring a diverse team of employees in your organization, you’re creating a unique collaborative team of individuals with a variety of worldviews and experiences. This will help increase creative and innovative solutions in a well-rounded way that is simply not achievable in a homogenous workplace. 

3. Building trust with employees and clients

Experts have predicted that the future of work will result in employees and consumers trusting organizations more than governments in 2022. Forrester’s Global Trust Imperative Survey shows that performative virtue signaling is not enough if organizations want to thrive. The public will continue to hold organizations to increasingly high standards.

The best step toward building trust with both your clients and your employees is to create an action plan to promote diversity and inclusion in your workplace. It starts with creating a team with an inclusivity-first mindset, but organizations will also be expected to create both internal and external work cultures that keep diversity and inclusion as a core value.

4. Boosting employee morale and productivity

There is no shortage of information that highlights how burnout rates have increased over the past 18 months. Psychologist Esther Perel highlighted how a large factor in increased burnout rates amongst organizations is connected to current social and political news occurring in the world today. 

But there’s hope. Employees are increasingly motivated if their jobs remain aligned with efforts to contribute to a greater good of social equality. Diversity and inclusion in organizations will help lessen burnout rates in the workplace. Employees who belong to an inclusive workplace will have higher morale because they belong to an organization that is striving towards social equality. 

5. Increased revenue and growth

This final benefit of diversity and inclusion is logically linked with the benefits mentioned above. The bottom line is that organizations have been proven to benefit from diversity and inclusion. Inclusivity-first organizations create favourable workplace environments, keeping employee morale high while leveraging diversity to create innovative solutions to an organization’s challenges. Simply put, diversity and inclusivity will help you gain a competitive advantage for your organization’s productivity and revenue growth. 

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An inclusivity-first mindset is not simply a step toward doing what’s right in the current societal climate. It is a forward-thinking mindset that is certain to lead to both short-term and long-term benefits for organizations. A diverse and inclusive workplace paints a picture of a world that values equality. If we all play our part in creating these diverse and inclusive settings, we’ll be helping to create a world of equal opportunity.