As a business owner, aside from exerting efforts to push your sales upward, one of things that you must do is to create a healthy work environment for your employees. For one, a good workplace can ignite motivation and nothing just beats a job that fosters healthy and fun work relations.
But as the world gears towards acceptance and inclusion, you don’t want your business to be left behind. For certain, you have employees who come from different races and walks of life, and the last thing you’d want them to feel is to be excluded.
Why Your Business Need a Diversity Training Program?
That’s why incorporating and practicing inclusivity in business is extremely crucial. To further help you out, here are four reasons your business should have a diversity training program.
1. Diversification is culture
Outside work, perhaps your employees are aware of what diversification means. Or maybe, they already have firsthand experience with inclusive practices. But irrespective of this, diversification just doesn’t start by telling them the dos and don’ts of diversity. You should promote and breed a culture from it.
This is easier said than done, however, creating a culture of diversity can be done through an intensive diversity training program. But it shouldn’t stop there, you should foster a self-sustaining workplace where the training pays off because everyone knows how important diversity and inclusivity are.
In addition, there may be employees who have been indoctrinated with ideas that don’t go along with diversity. As a business owner, you need to give them more time to unlearn some of their internal biases, which may take quite a while.
2. Included Employees Are More Involved
Just think of that time when you’re in a place and you don’t fit in. Perhaps it’s because you’re new or maybe you’ve just been dragged along by a friend at a stranger’s party. That feeling is but a tiny portion of what your diverse pool of employees may be feeling in a non-inclusive workplace.
With the stress of work, coupled with social exclusion, your employees may feel less engaged, leading to a fragile work environment that may eventually hamper work quality. There may also be employees who will even feel that they’re unwanted.
Understanding different cultures and traditions, although extremely necessary, can be quite a feat. Especially when it’s between people who come from different races and even countries. Making your foreign employees comfortable with their stay can help, not only fostering positive workplace relations but also the quality of work.
3. Higher retention and employment
The world is brimming with diverse groups of people that have different ethnicities, races, gender identities, and sexual orientations. Chances are you have employees who belong to any of those groups, and you’d want them to stay with your company as much as possible.
The same could be true with prospective applicants that can help your company grow. Talent knows nothing of diversity, it only knows talented people and so should you. That’s why a person’s skin color or gender identity should not hinder you from hiring them and giving them a chance to be an asset in your company.
Furthermore, policies such as Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) are put in place to ensure that no one will be discriminated against and that everyone has an equal chance of being hired. Especially since work is a means to live and no one should be denied the right to live.
4. Customer-base Is Also Diverse
It’s true that an intensive diversity training program can bring a lot of good things for the company, and further improving it is the way to go. Diversity training can also help your employees properly associate with your diverse business partners and customers.
Since partners and customers are important stakeholders of the company, taking care of them should be the priority. But as the world changes, so do their needs. Therefore, making sure that your company is keeping up with the ever-changing world may even encourage consumers to stay with your business.
In addition, being diversified can also improve your company’s image. This is because customers would engage more with businesses that are progressive and diversified.
Final Verdict
Diversity training programs may incur additional costs, but it’s all going to be worth every penny. With the advantages of diversification, your business can definitely gain a lot from it. However, as a business owner, diversification should not be done for business improvement alone. Creating more diverse and inclusive spaces has a rippling effect on the world. Simply, by doing it, you help make the world become a better one.
