Taking the right steps to create a diverse workforce

There is an ever-growing need for businesses to have a diverse workforce. However, it can be difficult to attract and hire the right professionals if organisations have a strict ideal of the sort of person they want to hire. Cultural fit within a business is becoming essential for organisations as they attempt to grow and develop a voice for their brand and have passionate, and enthusiastic employees at the helm. So, how can you begin to create a diverse and inclusive workforce that matches the environment of the office and the cultural fit with your employees?

The obstacles

Your business may have great intentions for increasing diversity within the workforce, but it is likely that you may hit some roadblocks on your journey to creating a diverse and inclusive team. Some organisations are resistant to change and are reluctant to do things differently. If you are always hiring the same type of person, diversity is unlikely to improve. 

It is crucial to review your processes and make changes where necessary, as some decisions that were made a long time ago and may be out of date, go unchallenged. For example, if you only recruit managers that have a degree, you are disregarding a lot of top talent that have taken a different path to success in their career. Taking this approach will open up new possibilities which will improve diversity and develop a better business culture. 

Increasing diversity

It is important to recognise that the culture of a business is always evolving. As professionals come and go from a business, personalities leaving or replacing these individuals will begin to change the working environment and bring something new to the table. 

The changing set of collective beliefs within a business need to be inclusive and forward-thinking in order to attract and retain a diverse workforce. If these beliefs don’t come from the top, then it is unlikely this approach will be taken at all levels of the business. 

Diverse teams inherently make better decisions, which can improve reputation, increase profitability and opportunities within the organisation. Businesses wrongly believe that if you hire similar professionals to those that have been successful in the past, then this will guarantee success in the future. Remember, different personalities, working styles, skills, and experience work well together and offer more than just different versions of the same professional. 

Your business’s D&I agenda

With diverse workforces proving to be beneficial to organisations, diversity and inclusion should be on everybody’s agenda. Be sure to organise training courses for management levels and above as to why it is important and the impact it can have on the bottom-line. Once your management team is up to speed on the expectations of your business in terms of D&I, then you can soon trickle this through to all members of the organisation. 

Once you have formulated your D&I goals, it is imperative that your business leaders create a plan and strategy to achieve these goals. Not everything will be achieved overnight, but creating an achievable plan with tangible commitments and time scales will help you to track progress and promote successes. 

Improving your business culture

The main goal for you and your overall business should be that diversity and inclusion is embedded into the everyday culture of your organisation, and eventually the engineering and manufacturing industry as a whole. Here are a few ways to improve your D&I offering and promote business success in this area.

• Promote your D&I policy: promoting your policies and goals with the entire business will give everyone the chance to learn about what you are aiming to achieve with D&I, as well as offering up the chance for your employees to give their opinions. Furthermore, this will create a united front in your organisation. 
• Better communication: utilising internal communications to promote your offering and share experiences across the business will encourage employees to talk together and can help people feel they belong with you and your business. Creating a network between teams can also allow you to learn what your business wants and make changes accordingly. 
• Celebrating difference: difference within businesses is important, as it allows leaders to consider different points of view and learn from others. Celebrating these differences will draw other people to your organisation.

Increasing diversity in your organisation won’t happen overnight, so it is important to make small changes to your processes and adopt some new ones today. Be ready to start developing a diverse workforce for tomorrow.

If you are interested in hiring top engineering and manufacturing professionals to your organisation, please get in touch with one of our specialist recruitment consultants for a confidential discussion today. Alternatively, submit a job spec, and we will call you.

Ruth Hancock
Operating Director, Michael Page