Companies with diverse management teams achieve 19 percent higher revenue due to innovation, according to a study reported in Forbes, and responsible diversity hiring can add to an entity’s bottom line.
According to the PwC 24th Annual Global CEO Survey of more than 5,000 respondents, the benefits of diverse hiring can include greater revenue, better applicants, greater employee engagement and retention, and improved connections with customers. Problems can be solved more quickly when different viewpoints are tackling an issue. Innovation can flourish when supported, providing companies with the opportunity to earn more and increase cash flow.
Employees want to believe in the work their company does. They want to feel their company cares about them and provides equal treatment within their workplace.
Hiring a diverse workforce can lead to an increase in innovation and more opportunities to express it, with an increase in productivity as more ideas and processes are brought forward through a greater range of skills, experiences and unique perspectives. Along with an improved customer experience that results from being inclusive of a variety of viewpoints, diversity hiring can add to employee satisfaction by acquiring better talent.
If all employees at a company think alike about everything, how much innovation would occur? That’s not to say employees shouldn’t adopt their company’s mission, vision and values. But a business that hires only a certain type because it perceives the candidate is a good fit may bypass a potential employee with a terrific skill set — skills that can add value to the corporate culture through new viewpoints from a different culture.
Creating a company culture where all viewpoints can be comfortably expressed is a positive step, allowing the business to provide products and services that understand and meet their customers’ wants, instead of assuming it knows what customers need. It is not enough to make a good product. It must be a good product people want to buy, because they spend money on what they value.
A lack of diversity hiring can affect a company’s ability to hire talented associates if it is perceived as being especially unattractive to specific groups. Consider that 48 percent of people born between the mid-1990s and mid-2010s are non-White, according to the Pew Research Center. Census statistics show that there are more millennials than baby boomers, and 57 percent of millennials are White — 16 percent more diverse than the baby boomer generation.
The best workplaces include a variety of ages and ethnicities. Looking at the landing page featuring my own team, I see faces of different races and ages, offering valuable perspectives. A Black female associate formerly of Atlanta operates our newly opened satellite office in Florence, Italy. Our cultural anthropologist speaks Russian, Finnish, Spanish and Croatian. I am a Hispanic female. We have Black and Hispanic advisory groups sharing the perspectives of these important audiences with our firm. Our cultural diversity adds to the rich skill set and talent we can share with our clients.
Companies that diversely hire tend to outperform less diverse companies. Their innovation processes yield a multitude of ideas and a driven workforce full of fresh ideas and innovation, providing a competitive advantage for their bottom line and new products for their customers. ●
Michele Cuthbert is CEO and creator at Baker Creative
