7 Benefits Of Promoting Gender Diversity In The Workplace

Gender diversity is becoming an essential factor for companies in creating an equal and positive work environment. It affects the employees' decision to work at a certain organization. That makes gender diversity a crucial part of retaining and attracting star employees.

Making gender diversity a priority in the workplace is a sign of diverse and inclusive culture. Organizations that aim towards increased productivity levels must consider hiring equal numbers of men and women, gender-neutral and nonbinary individuals in their workplaces.

It is easier for diverse companies to achieve their organizational goals with higher success rates. It involves an equal ratio of men and women, including non-binary and transgender people.

Today we are here to discuss seven significant benefits of gender diversity in the workplace, but before that, let’s understand:

What is Gender Diversity?

In simple words, gender diversity is the equal or fair representation of people belonging to different genders within an organization. Having said that, gender diversity in the workplace is not merely about having a diverse mix of genders. It is also about how inclusive they feel after they get hired.

You must ask yourself:

• Is your organization a safe space for women, transgender, or non-binary people?
• Do you have a firm policy against workplace harassment and bullying?
• Is your organization mistakenly involved in unconscious bias?
• Is your organization dominated by men, and do you have enough women in leadership positions?

Gender equality does not refer to hiring women, trans people, and nonbinary people only. To achieve the benefits of gender diversity, you must empower workers (irrespective of their gender) to exceed their full potential to attain growth and success.

Three Ways to Become Gender-Inclusive

Now, let’s look at three ways to ensure that your company has implemented useful measures to promote gender diversity in the workplace:

Eradicate Gender Stereotypes

In this rapidly evolving world, patriarchy still negatively affects the daily lives of today's women. Our society continually talks about how men and women must behave and appraises hegemonic masculinity. For example, if men are “assertive” in nature, women become “bossy” if they show the same behavior.

Such gender stereotypes should not be entertained in any workplace. If you want to be inclusive, you must identify the nitty-gritty of gender stereotyping in your company. Take a thorough look at your corporate literature and policies, if they use inclusive language in your offer letters, job description, and other relevant official documents.

Amplify Variety of Voices

Gender stereotypes are a reality, but it is also prevalent in workplace communications as well! To overcome this issue, you must ensure:

• Are you treating your female, transgender, and nonbinary employees equally as male employees?
• How do you handle employee ideas and opinions? Is there a prejudice towards the gender of the person who comes up with the ideas?
• Are you practicing a safe communication mode in terms of hearing out employee concerns?

You must seek answers to these questions to ensure every voice is being heard in your organization. If necessary, revamp your company culture and ensure to amplify those minority voices so that they receive a fair share of involvement.

Practice Fair Promotion

To ensure a fair promotion practice, you must ask yourself:

• What are the criteria for people getting promoted?
• Do you practice a fair and transparent promotion practice?
• Does every employee have the same amount of contact with their leaders and mentors?
• Does everyone get the same opportunities and resources to succeed in their jobs?

If you find it difficult to answer these questions at any point, it is time you take a look at your appraisal and promotion practices.

Consider looking at your hiring committee to ensure you’re not practicing any king of gender biases:

• Is it diverse?
• Does a specific gender dominate your hiring committee?
• Is the committee biassed towards a particular gender.

7 Benefits of Gender Diversity in The Workplace

As mentioned earlier, there are many positive effects of promoting gender diversity in your organization; below, we’ve mentioned seven such benefits. Let’s take a look:

1. Attracts a Broader Pool of Talent

It is an obvious benefit, yet many companies do not emphasize gender diversity. And as a result, they limit the amount of talent coming into the organization. You must ensure a healthy ratio of men, women, transgender, and nonbinary people in your team.

By doing so, you will encourage a diverse talent pool to join your organization to bring in new creativity, increase productivity, and innovation in the workplace.

2. Multiple Perspectives

People have different opinions and points of view whether they are men, women, trans or nonbinary. Their gender identity does not define the skills and talents of a person. However, the diverse experiences might help them to view things from a new perspective.

For example, no one can dispute that a woman's and a man's experience of buying a car is different. Similarly, by ensuring gender diversity, your team can benefit from different perspectives and drive creativity and innovation. Furthermore, it also helps to challenge gender stereotypes, which can, in turn, label your brand as gender-inclusive.

3. Attracts collaboration

While attending meetings, often minorities feel like they are not able to get a word in edgewise. But, according to research, teams with more women show better and efficient conversations. This helps in knowledge sharing and skill development amongst team members.

Also, face-to-face collaboration on projects helps improve internal communications and fosters team-building opportunities. Encourage people of all genders to collaborate and work together as a team to achieve organizational success faster.

Also Read: 7 Ways You Can Foster Collaboration In The Workplace

4. Enhance Employee Retention

Every organization aims to have a significantly lower employee turnover rate. When you retain your employees, you automatically save a ton of time and resources spent on recruiting and training new hires.

Enforcing diversity and inclusion programs will help boost morale and increase fair opportunities for employees. It makes workers feel empowered and valued at all times. They show no hesitance to voice their opinions, and that makes a great company culture. It will result in higher employee retention and save your money and time in the long run.

Also Read: The 20 Best Employee Retention Strategies

5. Know your customer needs

Unless you have a gender-specific product or service, your customers are most likely coming from various backgrounds and cultures. And they can also belong to multiple gender identities. So, make sure your employee base reflects your customers. By doing so, you can communicate with them effectively and understand your customer’s needs.

When you encourage teams’ diversification, you create an amalgamation of various genders, backgrounds, and ethnicity. Once you achieve this, imagine the buying power your company will amass and the eventual collective success.

6. Brand Reputation

Concerning the fifth benefit, implementing an inclusive culture can be an advantage to employ new people in the company. Happy customers and employees mean good reviews and feedback. It will enhance your brand identity and reputation in the long run.

Once you can excel in the market and gain a positive reputation with a diverse workforce, you will have a powerful recruitment tool at your disposal.

7. Increased Profit

McKinsey found that organizations with higher gender diversity are 21% more likely to experience above-average profits. And organizations that have culturally and ethnically diverse executive teams were able to achieve 33% better-than-average profits.

Thus, diversity and inclusion, especially gender-inclusion, is a massive benefit for your organization as it positively impacts your bottom line.

Conclusion

These were the seven benefits of implementing gender diversity in the workplace, and yes, it is essential for your diversity and inclusion programs.

Is your organization gender-inclusive? If not, it’s time you give it a shot. Do write to us if you have anything to share!

This article is written by Gautam Gayan. He works as a Content Marketer at Vantage Circle. Apart from being a passionate content creator for HR services and employee engagement, Gautam is a theatre enthusiast, an avid reader and an aspiring poet. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com