Promoting inclusiveness and diversity within your workplace is one of the best ways to have an open-minded and well-adjusted culture in your company, which is why it has become such a popular topic among companies building successful teams.
Embracing diversity and inclusion will not only improve your business by leap and bounds, but also help your workers understand their fellow colleagues, clients, and customers from all over the globe. Diversity can take many forms, whether it be someone’s culture and nationality, gender, race, sexuality, educational background, and more. It makes the workplace much more exciting by enriching the environment for everyone involved.
Whether you are working in a small startup, or even a part of a large corporation, the benefits of diversity in the workplace is a growing topic that’s compelling all businesses, regardless of their industry. “If you don’t embrace diversity, it’s kind of like not embracing technology,” said Mi’Shon Landry, Director of Supplier Diversity for the central region at Zones Inc.
Diverse Perspectives Can Lead to Innovation
Is there a challenging task on hand? Diversity breeds creativity and innovation. Having a team filled with people from diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives will gain you a much broader range of solutions.
Janina Kugel, the Chief Diversity Officer for Siemens, agreeably points out, “Diversity strengthens our innovative capacity, unleashes the potential of Siemens’ employees and thereby directly contributes to our business success.”
A diverse perspective and inclusive work environment allows your team to think outside of the box for complex problems, and challenge one another’s way of thinking. This is a critical factor in the innovation and success of an organization.
Wellness Program To Engage Employees
Introducing a company-wide program of any type can be quite difficult to pull off, especially when it comes to your employee’s health and wellness. Many wellness programs too often appeal to the same limited cohort of employees.
Luckily, there are options for wellness programming that are both diverse and inclusive. Be sure to implement a program that allows employees to stay focused on their goals, while also taking into account environmental, social and educational differences, enabling it to appeal to all demographics.
Healthy Eating
Hire a chef or nutritionist to come in to give a healthy cooking demonstration, or to take your team to a local grocery store in order to teach them how to properly read nutrition labels. You can even host an event that recognizes those who already eat healthy with a “share your lunch” day, where employees can share their healthy lunches and well as their personal perspectives on healthy eating.
Physical Activity
We all know that physical activity is vital for keeping the human body healthy and well. There are many options for companies when finding ways to include physical activities in their culture.
Sports leagues are a common choice for organizations. Not only do employees get a healthy dosage of exercise, but it allows for team bonding moments as they work together to compete. Some organizations even have their own teams in local co-ed leagues, allowing for some fantastic networking as well.
Inviting in a yoga or fitness instructor is also a great option to engage your employees. By providing an onsite instructor who can provide expert sessions during the day, you’re providing them with an extra opportunity to keep them fit and healthy. This can also serve as a much-needed break for your employees, rejuvenating them and increasing productivity for the remainder of their workday.
Financial Health
Financial health is an issue that continues to be a mounting concern as basic knowledge isn’t taught at school, limiting one’s exposure to the importance of it until they are older.
The pressure of dealing with one’s own finances will differ for each individual. Many Millennials carry the burden of having to pay off student loans, Gen X may be tackling the issues of needing to save for their retirement, while Boomers may still be trying to regain their financial foothold that they lost during the Great Recession.
Regardless of the situation, all generations share the need for grasping the basics of financial education. Learning about how to properly budget and save, how loan interest rates work, and what’s behind a credit score and why they should be monitored. Providing them this kind of knowledge will better equip your employees to manage their own financial situation and future.
Health Education
Provide your employees with education on a wide variety of health topics. Educators can be brought in, or other modalities can be adapted to educate.
Create a regular email from a wellness coordinator to highlight important health topics. These fact sheets can bring attention to the importance of screenings, high blood press awareness, mindfulness, and a variety of other subjects that can appeal to the diverse workforce.
Additionally, you can allow your employees to also share their own health knowledge. Your workforce will become even more engaged when they are empowered to create their own helpful materials and learn from one another. Post a wellness board where employees can share their own tips and tricks to a healthier life.
Execution and Success
Implementation of all factors is key in developing health and wellness programming that engages and promotes across a diverse culture. How is an organization supposed to be able to find the time to provide a wellness program that satisfies the diverse culture they are cultivating? An easy solution is implementing a one-stop shop for your employees, allowing them to go to one place to access all of their health and wellness needs.
