Diversity in employment has recently become a very fashionable term in the HR industry. We can differentiate between diversity on a personal level, e.g. country of origin, age, gender.

The second level is professional diversity, e.g. education, career path, type of personality, or style of thinking. All these features combine and give employees opportunities that are useful to them when the company wants to develop innovative solutions.

Diversity in the workplace is good practice and positively influences the results, position, and condition of a company. A diverse workplace is an important asset since it acknowledges the individual strengths of each employee and the potential they bring. Valuing the differences of others is what ultimately brings us all together. Also can be the secret to a successful, thriving workplace. Business leaders increasingly recognize that encouraging diversity in the workplace has several measurable benefits, both for the company and its employees.

 The benefits we gain from diversity in employment are:

#1 Increased creativity

People from different backgrounds usually have different experiences and thus different perspectives. People looking at one task but in different ways will provide better ideas.

#2 Faster problem solving

Employees from other backgrounds are able to present different perspectives on one problem, so they are able to solve the problem faster.

#3 Better customer understanding

With a diverse team, we are able to better understand the client and better respond to their needs. It often happens that a product or a service has to be strongly tailored to the customer’s needs, and we need different perspectives to appreciate them, which can be achieved  if the team itself is diverse and able to sympathize with a greater variety of people

#4 Greater pool of talent

By focusing on diversity, we increase the employability of the right person for the job. Hiring employees from a more diverse talent pool fosters mutual respect among employees who value the different perspectives and experiences of their team members. This allows you to retain employees and reduce costs associated with rotation within the company

#5 Positive employer branding

The diverse environment makes the company more interesting for potential employees and customers. This opens up new markets and business partners.

 These are just a few of the benefits we gain from diversity in the workplace. Employees who draw on different experiences are able to find ways to solve the problems facing the organization. One of the interesting examples can be an experiment done by Dr. Meredith Belbin called “Apollo Syndrome”. During the research, he gathered a group of clever leaders presenting high IQ and strong analytical minds. It appeared that even though they were highly capable individuals, their results as a team were much poorer than the results of more “average” leaders – they were not mixed enough, too similar.

In conclusion, diversity in employment is crucial. Recruiters play a major role in this topic, and when searching for new employees they should look at the organization broadly and build teams consisting of diverse people. Thanks to this, the company will gain greater business potential and will have a decisive competitive advantage over other organizations in terms of innovation and employer branding.