We all are aware about the advantages and benefits of diversity at the workplace. Inclusion at the workplace is one of the prime factors that shall be focused to implement diversity. But there has been a question that diversity needs a big shuffle in the organization and hence large companies could effectively do it with available manpower and other resources. On the contrary, it is not that hard to implement diversity in Mid-Sized companies. They can easily and effectively implement and improve workforce diversity and that too quickly compared to large companies.
MNCs and large companies have larger employee size and as far as diversity is concerned, it’s more employee centric and hence larger employee size needs a greater number of resources and time compared to small and mid-sized companies. So let us see a few ways to build workplace diversity in mid-sized companies and how to improve workforce diversity.
Ways to build Workplace Diversity in Mid-Sized Companies
Let’s Understand all Ways one by one to Promote Diversity in Mid-sized company.
1. Job Descriptions
Diversity in the workplace consists of primary change in policies of the workplace and working towards adding a different culture rather than fitting everyone in the same work culture. One of the key practices for changing diversity is to start hiring diverse candidates and for the same, job description and hiring policies shall be amended accordingly.
Training for existing employees to understand and respect diversity at the workplace shall be part of the i current hiring process For any new role, your hiring shall not be gender biased or choosing people from specific regions to make workflow easier. Any employee is responsible to complete a specific task, irrespective of whether s/he is a migrant labour or non-local resident. So, hiring shall be free of gender-based selection or race-based opportunities.
2. Focus diversity on your all-social platforms and media apps
If your organisation is promoting diversity at the workplace, your website shall reflect the same. Same is with all media app platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram and/or Facebook. Make amendments in existing websites (especially in the career section) to let everyone know that your organisation is unbiased and has adapted diversity.
A small change will bring a big brand image for your organization and shall be definitely promoted on social sites/apps. Such practices not only help diversity in mid-sized companies to get into the eyes of job seekers but also your clients and partner organisations and boosts brand value.
3. Diverse mentoring
You might often experience that, in an organization, a person is mentored by a senior person of the same educational/socio-economic background, even for that matter a woman is highly preferred to be mentored by a female senior. Well, diversity won’t be effective by adopting such practices. On the contrary, to improve workforce diversity, understanding of a topic or concepts, people from different backgrounds shall help to understand different perspectives as a team and brainstorm/learn.
4.Conduct Diversity trainings within your organization
There are several inhouse diversity trainings within the organisations that you can conduct to improve workforce diversity which helps you create awareness about diversity, helps your employees to understand benefits of diversity and that of inclusive work culture.
As mentioned earlier, diversity is an employee centric process and for the same, each and every employee of your organization (irrespective of the size of your workforce) shall be made to participate in the training. A one-day long session for diversity and effectively implementing those can help you improve workforce diversity up to 20-25%, which is considerable to start with.
5. Provide equitable learning and internship opportunities.
One of the easiest implementations to improve Workforce Diversity in Mid-Sized Companies is by drafting policies for learning and development for existing employees and internship opportunities for diverse groups. For example, hire a dumb and deaf person for digital marketing or SEO optimization or do some office documentation work. An educated transgender employee can help you with administration work or conduct audits for the organization.
Extending the point, many MNCs like L&T, Tech Mahindra, IBM etc. are hiring skill-based employees irrespective of whether they are graduates or not. Based on candidates’ knowledge and skills, these MNCs offer packages of millions to people. This is meant for equitable learning opportunities. If your janitor can operate a computer and if s/he learns about installations of software, you simply need them to enhance their skills and promote them to respective positions.
6. Encourage diversity with reward policies.
It is evident that for any change to be implemented well, there are some offers, perks or motivation that needs to be offered to people following it well. For the same, the workplace diversity policies shall consist clause to celebrate diversity and reward the highly performing employee. Perks shall be not only in terms of money or gifts, but also a shoutout on social media platforms and websites where s/he is recognised as a dedicated employee of the company and that he can showcase as his/her skills.
Concludingly, Implementation of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) in the workplace for mid-sized companies is not a tough job but is an organised approach towards change. Small and mid-sized companies can also implement diversity at the workplace and enjoy growth in terms of revenue and creativity.