Fostering an Inclusive Work Environment
Author: Scott Fiore
Fostering an inclusive work environment leads to many concrete benefits. It makes it easier to hire and contributes to better retention. Improved morale and enhanced team spirit can also boost productivity.
Statistics underline the way heightened inclusion augments your business. One survey found that 67% of job candidates rank a diverse workplace as a major consideration when choosing an employer. Meanwhile, promoting inclusion prevents a tense work environment. A separate study showed that nearly half of U.S. workers (45%) say they experienced some form of discrimination in the past year.
That’s a sobering statistic. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With the right direction, you can ensure that your workplace is open and inviting.
How do you unlock these benefits? How can you better foster an inclusive work environment, creating a more pleasant, more productive atmosphere for your staff? Here are a few steps to keep in mind:
Make Inclusion a Business Goal
An inclusive environment doesn’t happen by accident. You have to work at it actively. Start by making inclusion a core goal for your company. From there, you can start to enact specific policies to bring it to life.
Aggressively Hunt for Bias
Bias isn’t always obvious. As such, you need to stay vigilant. Don’t just eliminate bias when it accidentally comes glaringly into view. Hunt it out. Develop programs to identify hidden bias in your hiring and staffing policies. Once you find it, take aggressive steps to get rid of it.
Push for Diversity
An inclusive work environment has room for many perspectives. Seek out those additional points of view. Assembling a diverse staff grants you access to new ideas and innovative responses to problems.
Include Employees in Defining Your Culture
Culture, by definition, touches everyone. You can set goals and establish a tone, but aspects of your corporate values should also rise organically from your staff. Create an environment where this is possible. Include your employees in the process of nurturing your inclusive culture.
Encourage Feedback
Feedback represents the key step for involving workers in your goal of fostering inclusion. You have to know if your efforts are working. To do this, you need a back-and-forth communication with your staff. Encourage them to provide feedback, so you know if more initiatives are needed to create the atmosphere you want.
Incentivize Mentorship
Foster relationships among your coworkers. After all, they interact more with each other than they do with you. By creating programs that encourage mentorship, you help tie everyone together and foster a more inclusive environment in general.
Offer Leadership Opportunities
Let your employees take on as much responsibility as they can handle. This strategy eases the burden on you (suddenly, you have less to deal with on a day-to-day basis). At the same time, it gives your workers ownership in the output that you produce as a team.
Routinely Thank Your Team
Think about the word “inclusion.” It implies that your workers should feel included. By extension, it suggests that you should create a sense of partnership, where everyone feels connected to the company’s success. Recognize your workers’ efforts and routinely thank them for their contributions. These small gestures help keep an open atmosphere and foster team spirit.
Having an inclusive work environment lets you get the most out of your staff. It also helps to have the right workers in the first place. A top-flight staffing agency, like TriStarr, brings you the team members you need to maximize your efforts.
Contact TriStarr today to learn more.
Fostering an inclusive work environment leads to many concrete benefits. It makes it easier to hire and contributes to better retention. Improved morale and enhanced team spirit can also boost productivity.
Statistics underline the way heightened inclusion augments your business. One survey found that 67% of job candidates rank a diverse workplace as a major consideration when choosing an employer. Meanwhile, promoting inclusion prevents a tense work environment. A separate study showed that nearly half of U.S. workers (45%) say they experienced some form of discrimination in the past year.
That’s a sobering statistic. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With the right direction, you can ensure that your workplace is open and inviting.
How do you unlock these benefits? How can you better foster an inclusive work environment, creating a more pleasant, more productive atmosphere for your staff? Here are a few steps to keep in mind:
Make Inclusion a Business Goal
An inclusive environment doesn’t happen by accident. You have to work at it actively. Start by making inclusion a core goal for your company. From there, you can start to enact specific policies to bring it to life.
Aggressively Hunt for Bias
Bias isn’t always obvious. As such, you need to stay vigilant. Don’t just eliminate bias when it accidentally comes glaringly into view. Hunt it out. Develop programs to identify hidden bias in your hiring and staffing policies. Once you find it, take aggressive steps to get rid of it.
Push for Diversity
An inclusive work environment has room for many perspectives. Seek out those additional points of view. Assembling a diverse staff grants you access to new ideas and innovative responses to problems.
Include Employees in Defining Your Culture
Culture, by definition, touches everyone. You can set goals and establish a tone, but aspects of your corporate values should also rise organically from your staff. Create an environment where this is possible. Include your employees in the process of nurturing your inclusive culture.
Encourage Feedback
Feedback represents the key step for involving workers in your goal of fostering inclusion. You have to know if your efforts are working. To do this, you need a back-and-forth communication with your staff. Encourage them to provide feedback, so you know if more initiatives are needed to create the atmosphere you want.
Incentivize Mentorship
Foster relationships among your coworkers. After all, they interact more with each other than they do with you. By creating programs that encourage mentorship, you help tie everyone together and foster a more inclusive environment in general.
Offer Leadership Opportunities
Let your employees take on as much responsibility as they can handle. This strategy eases the burden on you (suddenly, you have less to deal with on a day-to-day basis). At the same time, it gives your workers ownership in the output that you produce as a team.
Routinely Thank Your Team
Think about the word “inclusion.” It implies that your workers should feel included. By extension, it suggests that you should create a sense of partnership, where everyone feels connected to the company’s success. Recognize your workers’ efforts and routinely thank them for their contributions. These small gestures help keep an open atmosphere and foster team spirit.
Having an inclusive work environment lets you get the most out of your staff. It also helps to have the right workers in the first place. A top-flight staffing agency, like TriStarr, brings you the team members you need to maximize your efforts.
Contact TriStarr today to learn more.
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