Workforce Diversity
It’s Different and Exactly What I Need Right Now! S
ure you have experienced a real eye opener at some stage. The time when somebody told you something or
when you returned from a coaching ses- sion and you think “wow, I need to imple- ment this. It makes so much sense. I can’t believe I didn’t see that before”. During my career to date I have worked
with 24 different nationalities, colleagues with no official education, scientists, law- yers, bricklayers, accountants and many other professions. Everybody was good at something and it was not always the colle- ague you would have expected who would turn out to be outstanding. Everybody was contributing to the common goal we had established and committed to while we had a range of experience that we could choose from. How good would your team be if you would be able to pick the most skilled people from a global source and by how much could you multiply your business if you could expand your target group all over the globe? I learnt that our acceptance of diverse views is apprecia- ted and the benefits include more respect, an increase in business scope, increa- sed productivity, higher quality, reduced costs, satisfied customers and employees that are loyal to us. It also leads to innova- tion, an opportunity to differentiating our company and leaving competition behind by a mile. Diversity in business does not mean that we just ‘know’ our client. It means that we really understand the diffe- rent perspectives of all our stake holders. When we for example want to assemble a multi cultural talent pool then we need to understand how people from different na- tionalities grew up, and what their expec- tations and perspectives are when joining our work force. Why would somebody want to work with us if he/she feels that we do not respect their view at all? Accepting something that we find stran-
ge or that we don’t understand immedia- tely can be a difficult task for anybody. I believe we have barriers inside ourselves that are based on our upbringing that we
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need to overcome. I remember this survey that we did in a corporation 10 years ago across 20 nationalities when we asked each employee: “what do you miss the most when being away from home”? And the overwhelming majority voted food as the one thing they missed the most. Not re- ally a surprise when I think about it today, Food from home is something that we can all relate to and it is different wherever we go. From a business perspective it is also a diverse need that we have accepted and responded to. All major corporations that employ multi cultural teams serve a di- verse range of menus in their canteen. We have done much more than providing di- verse food, we have created technologies that allow us to conduct business with an increasing diverse global business com- munity. We have even created processes (on-boarding) that describe exactly what we should consider when bringing a new colleague ‘on board’. Saying that, I believe we still have a
long way to go though. I can see bullet points everywhere, calculators, processes and programmed minds when making di- verse decisions and I think that we need to become better and consider even more differences. Today’s business environ- ment seems to be driven by dependencies rather than needs and wants, believes and views. I can see a real risk that businesses do not consider the opportunity of diver-
www.blackeoejournal.com by Peter Gruben
sity enough. There are talents on this glo- be that businesses cannot access through current methods used and we might need them right now. They know about the people, the systems, and the processes we need and will show that we can be bet- ter when using a different approach. Too many people are still too afraid to try so- mething new. Taking a risk does not seem to be an option even if an investment in a different view could be the solution for many. I believe that a diverse response could really benefit businesses on every level from corporate social responsibility to satisfied employees and satisfied custo- mers. Could companies change from ‘di- recting’ to’ responding ‘when designing business flow and environments? In my experience people resist different views as long as they don’t understand the diffe- rence. If we cannot adapt and benefit from different perspectives in a global environ- ment we will end up being stuck in the old world of dependencies and lose out on the benefits described above. So what do we have to do to create a
culture of diversity acceptance? A genuine change has always to come from the top or it will not work. I believe that company cultures are reflecting the philosophies of leaders. Those philosophies are deeply ce- mented within a leaders mind. Sometimes a leader has a very human and engaging Continued on page 31
The Black E.O.E. Journal
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