Diversity and Inclusion is not just a nice to have, it’s a business necessity. If your workforce is not diverse, are you able to innovate products and services for the diverse target customer populations you want to attract? Is your organisation at risk to its brand and reputation…
Being more inclusive benefits everyone:
- Diverse teams, including men and women, people from different cultures, people with disabilities, people with different backgrounds and skills are more innovative. Imagine what you might miss if you had a group made up of people from the USA designing a product for use in China – could you guarantee they would know enough about the market, the culture, the norms of behaviour to appeal to the target customer? But if you had a diverse team, not only would you get the benefit of local knowledge, you would also get the team’s different experiences , training and ways of thinking contributing to a powerful product.
- Flexible workhours will allow parents to take children to school in the mornings, or attend school events and still fulfill their work obligations. Or employees who attend global calls in the evenings can structure their days to avoid fatigue and eventual burnout from working very long hours. A happy, fit and healthy organisation performs better and stays with you longer.
- Picture this – your corporate website and all customer documentation is designed to be fully accessible to people with disabilities such as visual impairment or dyslexia. How many potential clients or customers would this attract to your organisation? Have you considered how many may rule your organisation out because you are not accessible? How many of your employees will also benefit from clear, clean typefaces, well structured documentation and templates?
