Diversity in Teams

By Shalah Smiling 

The HR Executive article by Suzanne Vickberg and Kim Christfort, “When Diversity Isn’t Working for Your Team,” discusses the challenging aspects of implementing diversity within an organization, and what to do when diversity and inclusive team efforts are not in agreement. This article explains that the lack of diversity can be caused by an attraction or a selection of a certain type of individual, perspective, or cultural fit for an organization (Vickberg & Christfort, 2019).
 
Vickberg and Christfort provide five strategies that can help develop and improve a company’s diversity and inclusion efforts into a workplace that ensures a variety of perspectives, cultures, and characteristics. The five strategies the authors offer in this article are to “Size it up; Beg, borrow, or steal; Fake it; Test the waters; and Shake things up” (Vickberg & Christfort, 2019).
 
An important strategy in this article is to begin an assessment of your company’s structure. Then evaluate which areas within your company potentially lack diversity. This article provides an array of questions to consider when assessing your team’s diversity and inclusion strengths and weaknesses.
 
Another important strategy Vickberg and Christfort offer is the “Fake it” strategy. This approach is used when a company team has little to no diversity, and is aware of this weakness, but is willing to move outside of comfort and empathize with different individuals and cultures. For example, this strategy is about looking at situations from another point of view. The authors express that your company should “Ask people to put themselves in the shoes of those perspectives not represented on your team...” (Vickberg & Christfort, 2019). This approach may help when an organization is missing diverse perspectives in key areas. 
 
In an article by Darko Jacimovic, “22 Powerful Diversity in the Workplace Statistics,” he provides a collection of statistics about diversity in the workplace that will help you better understand why diversity and inclusion matter. One statistic is “Racially diverse teams provide 35% better performance compared to their competitors.” Jacimovic also shares, “Diverse teams are 87% better decision makers than individuals” (Jacimovic, 2020). Incorporating different types of diversity in your company teams will not only put your company above your competitors, but will also build better team chemistry.
 
Be encouraged to read and review the strategies and statistics provided in these resources. These resources may help you to successfully determine which steps are needed within your organizational teams in order to reap the benefits of diversity and inclusion. 
 
Additional Resources:

https://hrexecutive.com/when-diversity-isnt-working-for-your-team/

https://whattobecome.com/blog/diversity-in-the-workplace-statistics/