Tess Taylor 
If you have ever had to sit through a diversity presentation at work, you might have wondered why diversity is so important in the workplace. What the typical diversity presentation fails to address is that a diverse workforce is actually the key to success for many companies. As a professional in the human resources field, you must understand the value of diversity in the workplace and be able to communicate that value to the people you hire, train, and promote.
The Advantages of Hiring for Diversity
Hiring people with diverse backgrounds has several advantages for employers. If your management team has tasked you with delivering a diversity presentation to employees, one of the first benefits to communicate is that valuing diversity actually makes it easier to find the most talented people to fill open positions. The labor pool is now made up of people with widely varying physical characteristics, cultural traits, and personal beliefs. Hiring these people based on their skills and professional abilities instead of their backgrounds gives you a wider market to choose from, increasing your opportunities to find the best person to fill an open position.
Diversity and EEOC Compliance
If you are giving a diversity presentation simply to fulfill your company’s legal obligations, you should note that having a diverse work force protects your company from equal employment lawsuits. Hiring individuals with different backgrounds and characteristics also makes it more likely that you will qualify to do business with government agencies. When you consider that hiring, promoting, training, and terminating employees based on their protected status opens your company up to fines, negative publicity, and civil lawsuits, encouraging diversity in your workplace just makes good sense.
Improving Workplace Productivity with Diversity Hiring
James Threakill notes that diversity is also one of the keys to productivity at work. In an article published on the website of The Tennessean, he says that younger employees now expect diversity in their workplaces. Hiring a diverse workforce makes it more likely that younger employees will work with senior leaders to solve problems.
If you take what you teach employees in workplace about diversity training and actually apply it to your hiring practices, diversity can also be a great marketing tool. Customers come from all different backgrounds, and it puts them at ease when they can work with people who understand their unique problems and concerns. If you are truly committed to diversity, you must take the information you give to employees during your diversity presentation and use that information to make hiring decisions that improve diversity within your company. Doing so can pay off in the form of better relationships with people in your community.
Recruiting for Diversity
Human resources professionals are faced with the challenge of hiring the best people to fill open positions and following laws related to equal employment opportunity. If you give your employees workplace diversity training, it is important to practice what you preach. Take the principles you learned when delivering your diversity presentation and apply them to enhance your workforce with workers from varied backgrounds.
Guest Contributor: Nancy Anderson is the communities and article Editor for Beyond.com. Nancy has 10 years of experience in the online job search business with Beyond. Nancy’s team produces dozens of articles every month for top internet sites. Follow Nancy and the Beyond team on https://twitter.com/BeyondJobs.
(Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)
