When we talk about diversity at workplace, we generally associate it with a certain race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. It is seen as a narrow view towards diversity in various Human Resource Management courses taught in B-schools. Broadly, diversity is explained as the appreciation of differences at the individual level. It means that when you recognize, accept, and develop the specialty of each person in your company, then your organization can be called as diversity-friendly. Although this broad view makes complete sense, it is very philosophical. Therefore, it is vital that the companies categorize their employees into brackets of gender, race, ethnicity, and geography, etc. to manage diversity and inclusion.
“Why diversity is necessary in the first place?” you may ask. A similar workforce leads to lesser conflicts, strong culture, negligible language barriers, etc. But don’t forget that the business environment remains dynamic. The challenges will also keep on changing. You cannot solve new problems with old solutions. If your workforce is going to work with similar groups, creativity in your company will die one day. Therefore, for the growth of your employees, provide them with cross-cultural interactions and international exposure. It can only be done by encouraging diversity in the company.
Strategic development of diversity can be challenging for business, especially when you try to do it geographically. The costs of opening physical offices at various locations will burn your pockets. The transportation expenses will also be high. Apart from that, other challenges corresponding to unknown territories and their particular compliance can trouble you a lot.
Wait! You don’t have to drop the idea of building diversity in your company. Going remote can serve the purpose. With the increasing growth rate of internet penetration, ICT, and cloud computing, you can quickly build and manage your diverse workforce remotely. It can completely guide your journey towards diversity, and here’s how:
1. A large pool of candidates
One of the primary benefits of going remote is having a large pool of candidates to choose from. Any interested candidate from any part of the world would be able to apply for your company, provided she/he has an internet connection. With more applications dropping in, you would be able to hire top talent from different parts of the world.
This can also give a boost to your business in case you have a diverse customer base. For instance, if you have customers in other countries like China, you can serve them better with local representatives who can speak the regional language. And even if you don’t have customers in diverse regions, you can start exploring new markets with the help of remote employees.
2. Unbiased Selections
Even the most experienced recruiters can be the victim of biases in the recruitment processes. The preferences can be corresponding to geography, race, culture, or language. Since you have to celebrate the diversity in your company instead of disrespecting it, you must go remote to avoid these preconceived notions about people. In this way, you will be able to judge the candidate based on her/his work. If the work is as per the requirements, you need not worry about other ethnic, sexual, or religious preferences of the applicant.
You can do so by asking for their previous work and assignment details. Or maybe you can check their potential by assigning a pre-selection project remotely. Hence, the selection will be purely the result of performance and will be a result of the bias-free process up to a significant extent.
3. Flexibility and Inclusion
Outsourcing companies with remote workers are always more flexible in terms of work timings and workplace locations. Employees feel free to work from any place and at any time. Due to this flexibility, parents can take care of their kids alongside their work. It gives a significant boost to the gender diversity of the organization as mothers do not shy away from their professional life due to their other compulsions.
It can open doors to even more diverse applications in your company. From the employees with special abilities who do not find a friendly infrastructure in offices to those belonging to different time zones, all of them can serve you remotely without feeling excluded. Hence, remote work processes will provide inclusion to the conventionally ignored working class.
4. Reduced language barriers
With the help of an established remote infrastructure, language constraints are reduced. With the latest advancements in technology, in-built translators in the messengers can change the text from regional language to a common language in real-time. For example, if you are a UK based company and have a remote worker in France. She/he can chat with you with real-time translation from French to English.
This prevents a lot of judgments on accents and dialects. Employees can get cautious while interacting with their project managers if they are not proficient in using the common language. But the latest software and technologies have lowered the bars of language proficiency.
Conclusion
Business leaders readily accept the fact that conflicts are unavoidable in their organizations to improve creativity. What they miss out is the point that the conflicts should be renewed over time. It means that new problems need new approaches. Hence, they require new people. Here “new people” are referred to as those who are refreshing your company’s culture. Employees who can bring a different perspective on the table simply because they are different. Companies have to embrace this diversity to face the challenges of the future.
This piece of writing is suggesting a modern channel to achieve the diversity goals in your company. You are no longer bound to have people with similar backgrounds. Modern ICT, internet penetration, and remote infrastructure has made it possible for organizations to harness the potential of superb talent, which is spread across the globe. Hence, go remote, go diverse.
