When discussing the issue of increasing diversity in the workplace, many of the benefits that diversity can bring to a workplace are not always so well understood. An important point of consideration is marketing these concepts to businesses and other entities that employ workers. Marketing diversity successfully results in greater employment for minority groups as well as businesses learning the benefits of employing members from these populations for their workforce. Some businesses may be wary of hiring diverse members based upon prejudiced notions, however greater awareness of these benefits may help to negate some of those attitudes. The benefits associated with a diverse workforce include helping the company to perform better, increase creativity, and secure foreign markets.
The bottom line for many places of employment is finances and returns. Companies typically need to have a certain level of certainty that their workers can be productive. This makes selling diversity as a potential increase to productivity such a good argumentative tool, and it has the data to back it. Support has been shown by researchers that increased diversity within the workplace is correlated with both greater increased productivity and happiness (Reynolds, 2019). One possible factor for this greater productivity is decreased stereotype threat among group members, as a less judgmental environment would aid them in not being flustered or distracted by stereotype expectations. With greater happiness typically leading to greater job satisfaction, employers not only gain a potential increase in productivity through hiring minorities, but additional job satisfaction from their employees as well.
Sourced from https://www.benefitfocus.com/blogs/benefitfocus/benefits-diverse-workforce-part-one
A diverse workforce brings many perspectives to each situation that they interact with, resulting in a beneficial process called functional diversity. Functional diversity is the accumulation of diverse opinions in a work environment that lead to increased productivity and creativity. This diversity of opinions that can come along with diverse identities allows for novel thoughts and solutions to be formed, increasing problem-solving skills among workers. Support was shown for increased diversity enhancing creativity in the workplace, creating environments where ideas are heard and appreciated. The development of these environments through diverse employment can benefit less diverse workers as well, allowing their ideas more space to be heard as well due to changes in the social environment (Western Governors University, 2019). With individuals often being equally paired across diverse backgrounds to achieve shared goals, greater employment would likely also decrease overall employee conflict according to realistic group conflict theory (Gruman, 2017). Overall, the importance of the increase in creativity and problem solving shown with increased diversity is difficult to overstate.
More diverse workforce members bring more than original ideas to discussions, they also bring original markets. Markets from other countries can sometimes be difficult to fully analyze, with various custom and legal differences. Having diverse members that understand these locations or cultures more intricately allows them to conduct business with other diverse clients more easily and could be considered another case of functional diversity. Connections such as these have been correlated with increases in financial returns for companies (Reynolds, 2019). These untapped markets do not necessarily have to come from other countries even, local cultures and other client bases previously unexplored can now be tackled with more informed viewpoints.
The benefits of diverse workers can be easy to look over by companies who have not considered their possible benefits. The increased awareness to these benefits are likely to impact both businesses and diverse members of society, as mutually beneficial relationships can begin to be formed around this data. With increased performance, creativity, and populations to sell to, the results of research surrounding the benefits of diversity makes a compelling argument in my opinion.
Resources
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-4833-6973-0
Reynolds, Katie. 2019. 13 Benefits and Challenges of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace. Hult International Business School. https://www.hult.edu/blog/benefits-challenges-cultural-diversity-workplace/
Western Governors University. 2019. Barriers and Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace. WGU Business. https://www.wgu.edu/blog/barriers-benefits-diversity-workplace1906.html