Can gender diversity in staffing impact the growth of your enterprise?

Implementing a diversity and inclusivity strategy in workforce recruitment is an increasingly important decision for business success.  The strategy is of interest not only to social entrepreneurs and global development agencies but important for firms, large and small; local and international. 

“Diversity is any dimension that can be used to differentiate groups and people from one another… it’s about empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different, in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, education, and national origin. (https://globaldiversitypractice.com/what-is-diversity-inclusion/

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) draw strong linkages between gender equality and poverty reduction, for instance. Gender inequality robs women especially of opportunities, thus keeping them poor.

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Are you a business owner, CEO, or employer of labour? Is having a diverse workforce an important consideration for you? Is this something you believe in or do you consider it a fad that really has no bearing on the success of your business? Do you consider it of no direct relevance to the sustainability and growth of your enterprise?

According to Research: When Gender Diversity Makes Firms More Productive - by Turban, Wu and Zhang in the Harvard Business Review of 11^th February 2019, countries and industries that consider gender diversity as important enjoy the benefits.  Nevertheless, the data also suggests that for:

diversity to work, workers have to buy into the value of diversity, not just hear some rules about it. Diversity creates positive benefits when people believe in its intrinsic value. They can’t just see gender inclusion as an obligation. (https://hbr.org/2019/02/research-when-gender-diversity-makes-firms-more-productive).

What this means is that if a diversity and social inclusion strategy is to yield expected results, it is important to build/nurture a culture and an environment that genuinely embraces and respects diversity. The employer of labour will likely need to implement specific interventions, perhaps capacity building, to achieve this.

As Turban et al., found in their research “When countries and industries don’t value women equally, women working in those countries likely don’t feel psychologically safe speaking up in their organizations.”   Thus, women who feel excluded may hesitate to share innovative ideas that they have. They may not have the confidence to speak up in meetings and other fora where staff brainstorm and share ideas.  “When that happens, everyone loses” Turban et al., observe.   

What are your thoughts? Do share your experience.