The terms of a diverse workplace is an oft-used phrase but what does it really mean? Diversity means the different ways in which people perceive themselves and how others perceive them. People identify themselves in a host of ways. A diverse workplace means one which accepts all of this – diversity of orientation, thought, approach, gender, experience.
A workplace that is inclusive helps employees feel respected and valued and in such places, the rate of retention of employees is higher. Such companies also create loyalty in their employees. Research also suggests that companies that openly declare that they are inclusive tend to appeal to a wider base of customers.
Hiring employees only from the same background, same gender, and a fixed age group would lead to the company missing out on a lot of talent and capability of people who can contribute significantly to the company.
People with different lifestyles and backgrounds challenge each other. Diversity creates dissent and debate. Any organization would remain healthy because of it. Without dissent, it may be difficult to get good breakthroughs in difficult decisions.
The dynamic created by dissent prevents organisations to become out of touch with the changing needs and changing customer base. The range of different solutions that teams come up with, during important meetings/decisions is also high. Also, stereotypes get broken.
As per the new thought trends, various leaders in organisations are taking steps to make a more diverse workplace. A report by Deloitte Insights in February 2017, say that 38% of the employees expressed that the CEOs were responsible for major push in their companies for inclusion and diversity. This points to positive times to come in future.
India is a huge and a diverse country. There is amalgamation of different thoughts, identities and stereotypes. For better synergy and output at different companies, enough importance needs to be given to inclusion at workplace along with diversity. In the same report by Deloitte Insights, it was reported by 69% of executives said that inclusion is an important workplace issue. In 2014, this number was 54%.
Several laws have been passed which will hopefully help in providing guidelines to the company about taking steps for diversity.
Methods Used To Diversify The Workforce
One of the biggest sections of the population that gets left out and is under-represented is women. Even today, in India, in the technology sector, there are only 26% women engineers and male engineers are a whopping 73%. This is common in other sectors as well. There is a huge focus worldwide about hiring and promoting women who are rarely seen at the top management levels.
Despite of all these setbacks world over, there have been several programs in companies to bring back women who have taken a break, to increase the female workforce. Some of the methods include the facility of maternity leave, forming crèches in the workplace and also taking measures like Internal Complaints Committees (ICCs) for handling complaints regarding sexual harassment at workplace.
Currently in India, women can take 26 weeks or around 6-7 months of leave due to the Maternity Benefit Amendment Bill, 2017. Additionally, women are also entitled for leaves in case of any miscarriage or illness arising out of pregnancy. The law gives women the assurance that after giving birth they can have their job back and continue to remain financially secure.
As all these are paid leaves, in the private sector, companies are still reluctant to employ women. This occurrence is more frequent in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which have low budgets. Even in the public domain, there is much debate and discussion about this topic.
Secondly, another issue to make note of, is providing an atmosphere to women where there is a zero tolerance towards sexual harassment of any kind. To make the workplace fair and safe for women to work in, it is imperative to adhere to the requirements under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment At Workplace Act and create a panel for addressing any complaints which might arise. If these facilities are available to women, they will feel heard and respected in largely male-dominated companies.
Coming to sexual orientations, any person who identifies as homosexual has a right to not be discriminated against and have a fair working environment, according to a landmark judgement by Supreme Court that was passed recently. Any discrimination in the workplace is illegal and punishable by law.
We have some front-runners with this regard in companies like IBM which has created a culture that is transgender-friendly in a big way. IBM started the project ‘Vayati’ which aims at employing people from the underprivileged transgender community. It was named as the world’s most LGBT-inclusive company by the Amsterdam-based Workplace Pride Foundation. The company plans to include gender affirmation surgery under their corporate health benefit plans.
In South India, Kerala has made a huge stride as the Kochi Metro has started employing members of the transgender community as motor operators for trains. This was part of Kerala state’s initiative to make the workplace more transgender-friendly. Thus, by diversifying the kind of jobs that are offered and that exist for the transgender community, Kerala has set a new precedent.
There are a few companies which have created the facility of adoption leave to help employees to adjust with the new member in the family and also the new phase in life.
Some new ideas are taking roots, like the concept of menstrual leave which the media company Culture Machine has incorporated and enables women to take the first day of their period as paid leave.
However, more efforts need to be made to include persons with disability in the workforce. In several service-based industries where mobility is required, there have been efforts to include persons with disability in the workforce, for example, at KFC, Costa Coffee, Café Coffee Day; hotels like Lemon Tree; and in even in corporate companies like Wipro, IBM, Accenture and Capgemini. In fact, Capgemini has been hiring persons with disability in high numbers since 2012.
Besides enhancing the quality of work in companies, even the customers will be happy to interact with a diverse workforce who can relate to their needs.
Introducing Diversity Initiatives At The Workplace
To enable all employees in a company to also practice non-discrimination, it is important for managers to communicate the Code of Conduct to all. The employees should know clearly what would be acceptable and what would be not.
The company policy should be such that everyone gets treated equally and it should be seen that no discrimination exists.
Views and opinions set forth by all employees should be given equal weightage.
How Does One Hire A Diverse Workforce?
One of the biggest barriers to building a diverse and inclusive workforce is the unfounded belief that an organization must sacrifice quality to meet criteria. The truth is that high quality diverse talent exists but it may be difficult to find.
Companies can combat this by preparing in advance. It is important for them to keep communicating and engage with diverse talents on an ongoing basis before there is need to get new people into the organization. By getting to know people from different backgrounds, HR managers will have speed and confidence to hire them.
Globally, in companies, standardization of business practices and creation of homogeneous markets is common. If businesses don’t adapt to the changing markets, they risk losing out to competition.
Being flexible, mentoring and coaching and engaging with talent in advance are some techniques in hiring and retaining employees from diverse backgrounds and to successfully make one workplace diverse.
The management needs to be trained effectively as there might be several complexities and conflicts that come with a diverse team. Training on laws and non-compliance is required for diverse workplace to be successful. Training needs to be introduced when an employee orientation is given or employees are given new roles.
It’s high time more and more companies make their workplaces diverse. A diverse and inclusive workspace is a boon for any business that wants to be an agent of change. Even if 90% of companies become inclusive, society will become resilient.