Many companies believe that embracing diversity is the right thing to do and, at eSynergy, we’ve evidenced the business case for having a diverse team. There are limitations though to a strategy that focuses on diversity alone.
The second part of our blog series on why belonging and inclusion are as important as diversity, looks at why it’s important not to focus on diversity alone…
Harnessing the power of diverse thought
Firstly, an on organisation can often be ‘diverse-ish’, which is to say they only pay lip service to diversity efforts and initiatives and label themselves as ‘diverse’ without genuinely being so. Meanwhile, others will try and fail to achieve diversity (although we’d much rather you try than do nothing at all…).
What organisations don’t understand is that by only focusing on diversity (getting people through the door), we force people to think the way we do – which defeats the purpose of having a diverse workforce. We need to harness the power of diverse thought and the strengths that people with different abilities and life experiences bring to an organisation.