9 Tips for Creating a Diverse Workplace

Attracting and retaining top talent is a key concern for any business. But it's no longer enough to just have people with the right credentials. You need to cultivate a diverse workplace if you hope to attract the best talent to your organization, plus keep your current high-performing employees motivated and comfortable in the workplace.

Of course, creating a diverse workplace is often more difficult than you initially think. Read on for nine tips to build a diverse workplace, as well as keep it diverse and productive in the years to come.

Start with Talent Acquisition

First and foremost, begin your efforts to create a diverse workplace at the talent acquisition stage. Specifically, you should make diversity a stage 1 goal when:

• Looking for new employees for your organization
• Filtering through resumes or applications
• Determining where the new employees will go in your company if they are hired

"If you start by focusing on diversity from the get-go, well before you reach the interview stage, that focus should permeate throughout the rest of your hiring efforts," says Kyle Clements, CEO of Quipli. "That's a great thing, especially if your company has had trouble with diverse hiring in the past. Starting with a fresh approach is the best way to change your policies and your employees' mindsets regarding these initiatives."

If someone pushes back on diversity, explain the reasons behind it. A diverse workforce is beneficial because:

• It leads to diversity and ideas, which may help your business become more competitive
• It allows other minority employees to be more comfortable in the workplace, which contributes to a healthy workplace culture
• It prevents your business from offering products or services that are biased for or against one group of people or another

Need a specific example? "For decades, car crash testers and scientists were almost exclusively male," says Alexandre Robicquet, Co-Founder and CEO of Crossing Minds. "They tested cars for safety using crash dummies made similar to the average weight and height of a man. Unfortunately, that meant many cars were more dangerous for women than for men. Only after women were hired in this industry did car crash survival rates start to improve for females."

In this way, it's clear that diverse talent acquisition is important both for beneficial PR optics and for practical product results.

Prioritize Diversity During Interviews

During the interview process, make sure your HR representatives or your managers (or anyone else on a hiring board) prioritize diversity. This isn't to say you should completely ignore credentials, past work experience, or personality, but diversity needs to be just as important of a factor to consider as those other elements.

"If you have two identical candidates for an open position, but one of them is the same race as the majority of people at your company, and the other is a minority, it may be wiser to hire the minority candidate for the a plethora of reasons. Having diversity and representation at any company is key," says Ann McFerran, CEO of Glamnetic.

Prioritizing diversity during interviews will ensure that you hire both the right people and diverse people for your company at the same time.

Streamline the Onboarding Experience

Your company's onboarding experience is essentially the first impression a new employee has with your business. Therefore, you should streamline the onboarding experience to be as intuitive and welcoming as possible, especially for minority employees.

"In many cases, those from different racial, socioeconomic, or gender backgrounds feel isolated and uncomfortable during their first few days at a new job," says Nabeel Abdullah,CEO of Sapphire. "A poor or confusing onboarding process in which they are thrown into the proverbial deep end and told to swim can exacerbate these feelings."

You should make sure your business's onboarding experience is supportive and comprehensive. Assign the new employees mentors and make sure they can ask any questions they have whenever they have them. This will make your new, diverse employees feel welcome and help convince them to stick around for years to come.

Mandate Inclusion Training for Managers

If your business hasn't been the most diverse in the past, you must recognize that your workplace culture won't change overnight. Bradley Hall, CEO of SONU Sleep says, "Even with the best of intentions, managers can make social blunders or say inappropriate things. We're all blinded by bias and our past experiences, but we can train ourselves to overcome those factors."

To that end, you as a business owner or chief executive should mandate inclusion training for each of your managers or department supervisors. Inclusion training:

• Teaches managers to include diverse employees in workplace initiatives and discussions
• Teaches managers not to use the same few people for tasks each time
• Teaches managers to develop the skills of each of their employees, not just those like them

Such training is so important that it's now a critical and mandated part of training modules for organizations across industries. "Your business can't afford to be left behind in this regard, so start mandating these training modules ASAP," says Matt Masiello, Chief Marketing Officer of Baby Buddha.

Mandate Bias Training for Employees

Similarly, your employees need to be trained to avoid unconscious bias, especially when interacting with new workers. You can create a diverse workplace by mandating your employees go through bias training to:

• Ensure they treat everyone welcomingly and equally
• Avoid saying rude or unconsciously biased things

Some employees may resist this training or think you are accusing them of racism. Remember to stress that that's not the case. Instead, bias training is just meant to help everyone get along and to evolve your workplace culture into a more inclusive, diverse form.

Hire an Expert in Diversity

So, training is important. But how can you make sure the training sticks or is delivered in the best way possible? Hire a diversity expert!

A diversity expert is a training and human resources professional who can deliver the above training modules or lessons. They can also answer questions, break down the benefits of diversity, and overall work to smooth out any issues your employees may have with new initiatives.

"It may be well worth hiring an expert in diversity if you yourself are not from a minority background to prevent your own blind spots from coming into play," says Asker A Ahmed, Director of iProcess Global Research.

Be Flexible with Time Off Requests

Many employees from minority backgrounds will have religious beliefs or requirements that do not align with your own. Therefore, you need to remember to be flexible with time off requests. For example, a practitioner of Islam might need some time off during an unexpected time of year compared to Christian employees.

This isn't to say you have to agree to all time off requests automatically. But don't assume that all of your employees take the same holidays or need the exact same time off. "Part of having a diverse workplace also means accommodating diverse time off requirements or religious needs," says Marcus Hutsen, Business Development Manager of Patriot Coolers.

As a practical benefit, this could mean you'll have better labor availability across your organization. When one group of people is gone on holiday, another group of people could be back at the office, handling customers, or otherwise accomplishing great work!

Spread Talent Across Teams

To create a diverse workplace, be sure to spread new talent across multiple teams. Andrew Adamo, VP of Bullion Shark says, "Don't assign people from one demographic, for example, to one department or team. All this does is unconsciously cause people to become insular and stop collaborating with each other."

Instead, try to spread people out and encourage cross-departmental collaboration. The more diverse your workplace is, the more it will benefit from the fresh ideas and insights that diverse individuals bring to the table.

Spreading towns across teams also allows you to get an unbiased picture of which employees among your workforce are performing well and deserving of promotions. Again, this is a great way to avoid unconscious bias on your part and to cultivate a diverse workplace by acting out its principles.

Host After-Work Events

Lastly, you should give your employees the chance to meet each other and socialize as friends during after-work events. Host these events at restaurants, team centers, or even in the office if you order takeout. "The point isn't what you do; it's that you let everyone in your company bond together and realize they're all on the same team instead of highlighting superficial differences," says Patricio Paucar, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer of Navi.

Part of creating a diverse workforce means ensuring that everyone gets along. That can't happen without genuine friendships. But if you host after-work events, diversity will come along much more smoothly, especially since your employees will see each other as fellow team members regardless of background.

In the end, your attitude—and the diversity plan you put in place—will impact your workforce and its makeup more than anything else. As a leader or business owner, it's down to you to show the benefits of diversity and make sure your fellow managers and employees follow the above steps. Cultivating and maintaining a diverse workforce will be a great benefit to your business in the future.