By Louise Green
Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the workplace helps employees to feel accepted and valued, and when this happens, they are often happier and will stay longer. Diversity is the full range of ways a person can identify including, but not limited to, race, gender, cultural background, educational background, personality, and religion. Inclusion is when every single person in the community is valued, heard, respected, empowered, and feels a true sense of belonging.
D&I is more than just policies, programmes, or headcount. Equitable employers outpace their competitors by respecting the unique needs, perspectives, and potential of all their team members. As a result, diverse and inclusive workplaces earn deeper trust and more commitment from their employees.
Development Dimensions International (DDI) have just released a special report from the Global Leadership Forecast series, examining responses from 2,102 human resource executives and 15,787 leaders around the world to answer key questions to guide diversity and inclusion efforts.
Companies are increasingly paying attention to D&I, and with good reason. This Global Leadership Forecast research has consistently shown that organisations with a more diverse workforce have an edge.
Having a higher proportion of women and minority leaders is the most strongly linked factor to financial performance. In fact, diversity has a greater impact on financial performance than any other organisational demographic factor.
In this study, DDI found that organisations with above-average gender and racial/ethnic diversity had at least 30% women and 20% from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds in leadership roles.
These organisations were eight times more likely to be in the top 10% of organisations for financial performance.
This data demonstrates that not paying attention to D&I can impact an organisation’s bottom line - for the worse.
To read the full DDI Diversity and Inclusion Report 2020 please click here.
Louise Green is a senior organisational development and executive selection consultant for Sheffield South Island. With over 20 years’ experience as a facilitator, consultant and HR professional, her skillset includes:
CEO and Board performance reviews, 360 surveys, Organisational Development, Leadership Development, Executive Recruitment, Succession Planning, Change Projects, Team Building and Executive Coaching.
Louise can be reached at www.sheffield.co.nz