The Importance of Cultural Diversity in Your Company

Throughout the globe, there are events taking place that talk about the importance of diversity. Diversity, now understood in a much deeper sense than just questions about gender, age, sexual preference or religion; now expands this to include the different characteristics of one person to another. Every person is different, and it’s important that you maintain a diverse workforce in your company. The International Labor Organization (ILO) first of all promotes decent work for all, which is to say that – among other things – organizations must strive to offer all the conditions for their employees to develop fully and not be discriminated against. However, there are still voices that seem to question the need to adapt to create tolerant, multicultural organizational cultures rich in personalities. However, companies like Lively Paradox, which offer diversity and inclusion training specifically for leaders, are now talking about the importance of cultural diversity in business organizations.

Here are five benefits of an organization that hires a diverse group of employees:

 

• It is a key element to win the talent war. Today, organizations comprised of a wide cultural and social spectrum, making the talent war more complex. It is no longer enough to question how much knowledge an employee has or the level of technical skills required. A person becomes more attractive to the market, if, in addition to technical expertise, he has a broad and complex cultural background. To face the challenges of this new era, it is necessary to have a comprehensive and global vision that can create the basis for sustained development. This is only achieved, with an adequate mix of skills and capabilities in human capital.

 

• Diversity = innovation. Changes imply transformation and innovation. The current environment demands the redefinition of paradigms, new ideas and the establishment of open workplaces where the competitive advantage of organizations can be reinvented. This is where diversity, through the use of differences, empowers collaboration between work teams, allowing them to come up with complex and innovative solutions.

 

• Diversity adds to your company. The difference in perspectives produces the development of ideas or solutions “out of the box”. Beyond the conflicts that may cause a cultural difference between people, throughout history we have seen how having a common goal, makes people join a common purpose. It is about focusing on what synergy can generate, rather than what some differences may subtract. It is about changing the perspective towards win-win thinking.

 

• Key to face globalization. Globalization adds great challenges and unprecedented market expansion, as well as high mobility. Nowadays almost everyone knows someone who comes from remote countries. Given this scenario, diversity is the basis for achieving an understanding of the differences between regions and even nations, and at the same time reconciling them in local spheres. This is fertile ground to generate flexible environments that can deal with these phenomena.

 

• Diversity also affects the economic development of organizations. Beyond the intangible benefits, there are studies that show the benefits of business in diversity scenarios. For example, The best companies to work for worldwide, which are characterized by offering organizational cultures that promote good practices in issues of equity and diversity, present a performance of their actions twice better than their competitors and a return of the same three times higher.