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How diversity works for businessChwarae Teg Agile Nation Project - Hayley Dunne, Project Manager

The benefits of diversity

  • An increase in your chances of winning new business
  • An expansion in your customer base
  • Enhanced customer service satisfaction
  • An enhanced reputation for best practice
  • Increased productivity and efficiency
  • Improved staff motivation
  • A reduction in absenteeism and staff turnover
  • The ability to recruit from a wider talent pool
With each of these representing a different business benefit, understandably they are all things that you would want to see happen in your business

The good news is this isn’t a hypothetical question, because it is possible for businesses to gain all of these benefits. Of course the extent to which these benefits will be enjoyed can and does depend on a range of factors including business size and sector.

However one of the biggest factors to impact on a business’ ability to unlock these benefits comes down to a willingness to embrace the driver behind them.

You may well be wondering, what singular thing can help deliver these benefits to your business. Well you will probably have heard about it, and to ensure legal compliance may well have a policy for it, yet at the same time you may not have been shown how, when effectively put into practice as a strategy, it can bring this range of business benefits – it is workplace diversity.

It may seem a tall order for diversity to deliver all these benefits, especially as it can be misunderstood and regarded simply as a legal obligation to support the rights of employees.

So here’s an illustration to show how the effective adoption of a diversity strategy can help deliver genuine business success. The starting point is to understand that everyone is different.

Without an effective diversity strategy in place employees won’t know the stance their employer takes on the subject, and this is detrimental to both the business and its workers.

If all employees understand and respect the importance of diversity this creates an inclusive, harmonious and more productive working environment. This will be supportive of the rights of individuals at work irrespective of their beliefs, gender, age, sexuality or disability, and importantly it also extends to customers who, ultimately can and do, form opinions on a business based on the way they feel they have been treated.

Increasingly people use the internet to source goods and suppliers, and it’s no coincidence that many major companies have website pages to illustrate their commitment to diversity. This helps to show them as best practice employers and serves to widen the talent pool of potential employees – after all doesn’t everyone want to work for a good employer? It also shows potential customers that the business is ethical and good to trade with.

The good news regarding diversity is that to develop an effective strategy needn’t cost much financially, the main cost comes in committing time to learn about it and develop a strategy appropriate for your business.

For small and medium sized businesses in the convergence area of Wales there is even better news, because the Evolve programme (run as part of Chwarae Teg’s £12.5million European Social Fund and Welsh Government funded Agile Nation project) is offering free, impartial advice and support.

The Evolve programme starts with a free 1 day workshop that will enable you to:
  • explore the benefits of adopting a diversity strategy
  • maximise the business benefits of diversity
  • understand the impact of the new Equality Act
  • develop more effective working practices
  • explore flexible and remote working
After the workshop we offer a range of support tailored to your business. We can help you create a diversity strategy that sets out cost effective actions to:
  • improve your working environment
  • get the best performance from your staff
  • expand your customer base
  • work more efficiently and productively
  • enhance your corporate reputation and become an employer of choice
Additionally, if you identify a need to introduce remote working as part of your diversity strategy, Evolve offers specialist impartial advice and support for your business.
To find out more about Agile Nation Evolve visit For Employers


Published on: 22/9/2011