Top tips on how to create a diverse workplace

Creating a diverse workplace is the cornerstone of growth, so companies and organizations that desire to attain exponential growth should strive to achieve genuine workplace diversity, said Nareen Young, CEO of Diversity Council Australia.

According to Young, male workers in Australia currently get higher salaries than women. “Across the demographics it's 17.5% between men and women in Australia right now, recent DCA research has shown us it's 37% for women 45 and over,” she said.

“That's obviously not good enough and clearly that would indicate a couple of things; there are not enough women in senior and executive positions in the employment market, but also that remuneration processes are clearly still very gendered,” Young added.

And so, to help companies create a truly inclusive and diverse workplace, Young gave the following tips:·    

•  Evaluate the company’s level of inclusiveness and identify and resolve issues that hinder diversity.
•  Communicate the benefits of creating a diverse workplace to your employees and engage them to take part in achieving the goal.
• Root out discrimination in the company, particularly in the hiring and retention process.
• Value employees from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds; these employees may help you expand your market reach because of their diverse knowledge and experiences.
• Provide equal flexible work privileges to all employees, regardless of age, race or gender.
• Respect indigenous people’s customs, beliefs and traditions.
• Put your managers to task in promoting workplace diversity.
• Ensure employee protection against workplace discrimination and sexual harassment.

These tips can help a company or an organization achieve genuine workplace diversity. When carefully followed, this could eventually yield significant benefits for the company’s bottomline. 

“Diversity needs to be viewed as a key business strategy and it needs to work across organizations in all areas and aspects of business,” Young said.

Read the article here:  Pro Bono Australia