Enhance Diversity and Inclusion at Work: Best Practices You Should Know!

In today’s advance and future-ready times, the corporate world has started to see the innumerable and untapped benefits of diversity and inclusion at the workplace. When it is about inclusion and diversity, we realize only a few companies have walked the extra mile to embrace the same.

JK Tech resonates with the value of inclusion and diversity and embarked on the journey, a decade ago.

Firstly, let’s understand what diversity and inclusion stand for in its true sense. Diversity at the workplace is an illustrative workplace that has smartly employed people with varied demographics, characteristics, and backgrounds of the society. Diversity encompasses age, religion, gender, race, ethnicity, education, location, and other attributes.  Diversity at the workplace comes with a plethora of benefits from different perspectives, enhanced problem-solving skills, solutions, experiences, talents, and diversified creativity.

Inclusion at the workplace on the other hand implies creating a supportive, nurturing, and unbiased environment wherein employees feel inclusive, empowered, supported, and respected of their profession(s), time, and efforts without any barriers, intolerance, or indiscrimination. Inclusion at workplaces naturally leads to high participation, improved employee engagement and a harmonious drive for work.

Diversity and Inclusion are interconnected concepts but they’re far from being interchangeable. Diversity represents an entity and environment. While, Inclusions speaks about the presence, contributions, thought processes of that entity are valued, respected, and adapted into the work culture to bring out the best of work objectives. Inclusivity in its essence to maintain and build a diverse workplace.

Here are some amazing benefits of a diverse and inclusive workplace:

• Fresher Perspectives: A diverse workforce in a comfortable environment welcomes newer viewpoints, strategies, and unique ideas. Such diverse workforce can contribute to create and build novel products, services, plan of actions, campaigns, skills and what not! Diversified teams also have practical understanding and experience to identify and serve relevant &  better products and services that cater to the needs of customer persona. Such diversified teams come with certain adversities of life which enables them to build and polish their expertise and develop prompt solution skills.
 
• Enhanced Employee Performance: Workplace inclusivity and diversity leads to excellence in performance. With an encouraged, safer, diverse work culture, employees are bound to feel comfortable being themselves which ultimately leads to happier productive employees which naturally amplifies work output, revenues, work morale, employee retention of such a diverse organization. With a diversified & inclusive workplace, TRUST is easily built & nurtured. As we all know trust among leaders and employees is a must. With inclusivity and diversity initiatives in place, your company can not only help bridge the gap but also build a greater bridge of trust. Individuals working in a diverse and inclusive workplace also tend to have lesser mental, emotional, or physical issues owing to a healthy, trustworthy, & inclusive environment.
 
• Higher Profits & Stronger Results: Diversity & Inclusion creates a profitable sequence for the employer as well as the employee. Happy and healthy employees perform better which leads to higher profits and stronger results. Many studies, including a study by Harvard Business Review, stated more diverse companies bring in 19% higher revenue. Even in times of crisis, such as the most recent pandemic of covid-19, such diverse and inclusive workplaces have proven to outperform owing to all the positivity and encouraged attitude.
 
• Comprehensive Innovation & Talent: Diversification is the key to new, untapped talent. Companies embracing different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicity, and thoughts are more likely to hire talented and creative individuals which in reverse widens their talent and innovation pool. On the other hand, today’s individuals are looking beyond a traditional job. Today’s talent strives for growth in a progressive, comfortable, and fun environment. As a result of being a diverse and inclusive place, both employee and employer are sure to be successful together.

As outstanding as the benefits of an inclusive and diverse workplace can be, it is also crucial to know how to build and improve an inclusive and diverse organization.

Here are some of the best practice followed at JK Tech:

• Buddy Program: One of its kind, the buddy program at JK Tech is a specialized project in place, wherein our experienced employees onboards the new employees. It is the responsibility of the experienced JK Tech employees to make the new recruits integrated into the work culture and environment at JK Tech, and support to ensure a seamless transition of the new JK Techie. Such a program leads to enhanced engagement and remarkable opportunities.
 
• Inclusive Work policy: At JK Tech, we believe in quality and results rather than hours. Hence at JK Tech, we have flexibility at all points to encourage a work-life balance. Such flexibility allows employees to take upon challenging assignments, build on diverse perspectives and improve and build new skills. Building on each employees talent and potential, at JK Tech, we offer extensive opportunities for personal and professional development. As a noble example, if a candidate is a great mentor, they can take up the buddy program and progress to be a JK Tech ambassador.