In the past, many companies fell victim to hiring workers “of the same kind” and building a homogenous workforce. What these organizations didn’t realize back then is that having a more diverse workplace is having people who possess different skills, talents, and experiences necessary to help solve various business problems. It’s no wonder why increasing workplace diversity is now the focus of many firms and their recruiting teams.
Benefits Of A Diverse Workplace
There are many benefits to promoting diversity in the workplace, both from a business perspective and a cultural standpoint. Specifically, business organizations that seek to diversify their teams benefit in the following ways.
A Diverse Workforce Leads To New And Better Business
Gaining insights that will improve the products or services you offer and provide to prospects and customers or clients becomes more straightforward when your workforce reflects society.
That’s because a diverse talent pool allows you to reach a broader spectrum of individuals. As you know, cultures aren’t homogenous. And since diverse team members also bring their culture besides bringing their talents, skills, and perspectives to the workplace, you’ll learn how to connect with different customers better. It’s even possible to discover new markets, especially when taking opportunities to dialogue with the various cultures that your workers are part of.
A Diverse Pool Of Talents In A Company Enhances Customer Service
A diverse workforce improves customer service by helping your organization understand cultural norms and reflecting your understanding of various cultures in how your business communicates. It’s especially true when your target market shares the same culture with some of your team members. As a result, you can serve your prospects and clients in a manner they expect and understand. Overall, it helps build trust and confidence between you and the customers.
In addition to new and better business and improved customer service, a diverse workplace also results in more innovations, leads to better decision-making, improves company reputation, and increases profits. It also improves hiring results, increases employee engagement, and, thus, reduces staff turnover.
Using Marketing To Promote Workplace Diversity
While diverse workplaces or workforces are highly sought after, they’re difficult to achieve and maintain. That’s because organizations need to be able to influence the way different people view their company. One tactic that has shown to be successful in promoting diversity in the workplace is the use of marketing strategies. Here are some of the ways to do it:
1. Make Sure Your Website Reflects Your Workplace’s Cultural Diversity
Websites are a vital tool in most businesses as these can establish credibility and build trust with customers. So, it makes sense that promoting a diverse workplace through marketing should start with your website.
What you can do is publish microsites or sub-pages within your main website that showcase your organization’s commitment to a diverse workforce. For example, you can have a small cluster of pages or an individual web page highlighting your company’s various affinity groups, especially those focused on gender and ethnicity.
2. Leverage The Power Of Social Media
Social media platforms have become a valuable tool for business organizations looking to find and connect with the right and best talent. So, if you want to promote a diverse workplace through marketing, social media marketing is one of the best ways to do it.
So why exactly should LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms be part of your company’s plan to promote a diverse workplace through marketing? Here’s why:
With social media, your organization has a significant chance of actually getting in front of the right candidates. That’s because many people with diverse backgrounds interact with social sites every day. It’s especially true on Facebook, one of the biggest social networks worldwide, with monthly active users of roughly 2.89 billion.
Targeted campaigns are also possible with social media, especially Facebook, thanks to paid ads. It means that you can promote the diversity of your workplace to specific groups of people based on demographic information.
Social media sites can amplify your recruitment marketing content plan, especially when generating awareness for your brand, including your company’s available positions and cultural diversity.
79% of job seekers actually use social media to search for opportunities. That’s why you have to ensure that your social media pages reflect your diverse workplace.
It’s also a good idea to be where your target audience is. It means that you should join professional groups of women software engineers on LinkedIn or Facebook if you’re looking to hire those people. Latino, African-American, and Asian professionals in different fields also have groups in social sites if they’re the ones you’re eyeing to add to your workforce.
Once you’re already a member of different social groups, show off your company’s social media pages. Of course, don’t forget to publish posts or upload pictures on your pages detailing how diverse your business’s culture is and how it’s impacting your team members positively.
An essential tip to keep in mind when using social media to promote a diverse workplace is to involve your team members in sharing posts on your pages. After all, the point of using LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram is to extend your reach. Also, the power of personal recommendations should never be underestimated! Just make sure that all of your team members
are aware of what’s expected of them.
3. Create Diversity-Focused Content
It doesn’t matter what marketing channel you’ll use; your content should also be diversity-focused. It means that it should be relevant to various audiences. Here are ways you can build diversity-focused content:
Write blogs that tackle diversity-focused topics. You can write the content for your blog yourself. Or if you want to give your team members a voice, ask them to contribute to your company blog by writing about what your organization’s diverse workplace means to them. Letting team members write some of your blogs is also one way of putting a spotlight on those that represent your workforce.
Create a mission statement that highlights your workforce’s diversity and featuring it on your website prominently.
Publish posts on social media reinforcing your identity as an organization of diverse professionals.
Publish images that reflect your company’s cultural diversity on your website or social media pages.
Publish videos that reflect cultural diversity on social media pages and other online platforms. Video is especially useful if one of your goals is to engage with passive candidates. Compared to text or any other form of content, the human brain can process visual information faster.
Taking advantage of video content is possible by hosting spontaneous Q&As using live video features of some social platforms. Posting videos, particularly behind-the-scenes footage on your own website that let people have a glimpse of the cultural diversity in your company is also a good idea.
4. Networking
Another marketing strategy worth trying in promoting your business’s diverse workplace is networking. It can help you learn useful information about your industry, including diverse talents that you can add to your workforce.
One of the best ways to network with new people is, of course, attending events, especially career fairs. That’s why you have to constantly research events happening nearby that are likely to be attended by diverse professionals too. Attending such events is also an opportunity for your brand to show its all-inclusive nature and that you’re really putting effort into finding a promising candidate for your diverse workforce.
5. Offer Rewards For Diverse Referrals
Many businesses use referral marketing to earn new customers. With this word-of-mouth marketing strategy, companies incentivize existing clients for every family, friend, or contact they can introduce to the brand’s product or service.
Companies that want to promote a diverse workplace through marketing can replicate the technique. Just explicitly ask your team members to refer talents from underrepresented groups and reward them for every successful recommendation.
Examples of incentives you can offer for diverse referrals are:
Cash: Cash is a favorite referral program reward. Unsurprisingly, it also tends to generate so much buzz. The amount of financial incentive doesn’t have to be that much. Even a small amount can motivate your team members. After all, all they have to do is to recommend someone to be part of your diverse workforce.
Gift cards: Gift cards are prepaid vouchers for third-party products or services. Your team members will love gift cards for sure because it gives them a lot of control on what to do or buy with it. Gift cards offer flexibility as the vouchers don’t have to be directly used by team members. In other words, it could be transferrable and any of their family members or friends can use them. Gift cards, however, have expiration dates.
Redeemable Points: The redeemable points model is super simple. Essentially, you award points to team members for sending referrals your way. Once they reach a certain number of points, they can redeem the points for benefits or activities like paid rest days or vacation leave.
Final Thoughts
A diverse workplace is a rich and conducive environment for innovation. Yes, the journey to building and maintaining a diverse and inclusive workforce can be challenging. However, if you stick to the ways of promoting a diverse workplace through marketing mentioned and discussed above, you can achieve it in no time.