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Diversity, while often a hot-button topic, has become a key factor in today's workplace. Today, employers have to prepare their employees for a variety of different environments, and cultures more than ever before. This diversity not only applies to employees from different cultures who are now working together due to globalization, but also to generational differences and personal preferences among each and every one.
Adding on to this diversity, more people are now working remotely due to behavioral changes driven by COVID-19, presenting a new set of diversity management challenges to the HR team. So, it’s important to build on the organization’s existing diversity management strategies in line with the culture to attract the best talent, keep them satisfied, maintain and improve their performance, and build sustainable global organizations.
As a human resource professional, you will be responsible for helping the organization understand and incorporate diversity in its strategy. But what challenges does diversity pose? The answer is simple, diversity within an organization could lead to challenges in communication, expectations, and knowledge management to name a few. Simply put, your Gen Z new hire could value flexibility more than the Gen X colleagues who value higher wages over flexibility in the work routine, thus creating the challenge of how to satisfy both requirements. You can’t decide to run the organization with only a select list of generations as each generation brings its own skills to the table. So how do you take two contrasting perceptions and make them cooperate?
Overcoming issues such as miscommunication or marginalization is key but where do you start, often the answer is within your very own walls. The trick to successfully managing diversity is having a strong, inclusive, and collaborative work culture. Through this culture, the organization should create a favorable environment for anyone to work with qualities such as equality, honesty, transparency, flexibility, training, etc.
Diversity requires a healthy work culture, and a healthy work culture promotes diversity. The best workplaces are those where people feel safe and empowered to be themselves, and bring their whole selves to work
That's why it's so important that all employees of a company, starting from the CEO, develop an understanding of how diversity affects a company and its employees. When we understand that we're all different and that the differences are what make organizations special, we can work more effectively as a team. Diversity helps to bring in new ideas, new skill sets, improved creativity, and so much more due to the wide range of personalities that contribute to the organization. And the best way to promote diversity is a strong workplace culture.
A strong workplace culture should be able to eliminate any bias, discrimination, and inequality. All employees should have access to the same information, the same training, and most of all a fair judgment of their performance. But it’s not enough if you do it without transparency. To avoid any doubt, information such as performance metrics, training programs for employees of the same level, recruitment policies, leave policies, etc. need to be transparent and readily available for everyone.
Organizations with such practices signal to all groups of people that they can thrive within the organization. Hence, promoting diversity which is a crucial element in the company culture in order to attract the best talent and build sustainable organizations.
Creating an equal and transparent culture is easier said than done. That’s why an HRMS is an absolute must in today's complex HR landscape. A globalized economy and diversity mean keeping track of multiple types of employee data, following fair recruitment practices, training employees remotely, managing performance, and so much more. The challenges are endless. And while doing all of this, how are you going to maintain transparency to promote diversity? That’s where HR software comes into play in helping organizations perform HR functions digitally and to promote diversity through equality and transparency of information.
Here’s how! For instance, as an HR professional, the HR policy document which outlines your diversity policy, pay policy, leave policy, etc. is crucial in taking important decisions. An HRIS allows you to easily share this document with all employees, get their acknowledgment and keep it readily available for their reference at all times. Should a change arise in the HR policy, you can also let everyone know that a change has been made.
With an HRMS, you can also automate your leave management processes. It provides the ability to create multiple leave types such as paternity leave, work-from-home leave, grievance leave, or whatever it may be, create different leave policies, and assign leave entitlements to employees based on where they are located or their employment type. Setting up such a complex process manually can be daunting. But with an HRMS you can do all of this in a few clicks, and easily create a culture that promotes diversity by addressing the individual needs of all employees. An HRIS will also allow employees and managers to easily check who’s on leave on a given date through organizational leave calendars.
In addition to that, a modern-day HRIS will also allow you to train your employees no matter where they are with online and offline training programs. Best part? You can share training programs with groups of employees or individual employees in just a few clicks giving you the ability to promote equal learning opportunities for everyone.
Furthermore, an HRIS will also allow you to conduct fair and transparent performance management practices. You can set up 360-degree performance management reviews where supervisors, colleagues, and managers can provide feedback on an employee's performance allowing no room for bias. You can also set up individual/group goals and OKRs for your employees so the performance metrics are transparent from the start.
That’s not all, an HRIS will also provide you with features such as internal social media platforms that you can use to improve communication and collaboration, a corporate directory for easy access to anyone's contact information and so much more.
Awarded the Best Comprehensive HR/Workforce Solution for 2022 at the HR Tech Awards, OrangeHRM is far above the average HRIS. Find out more about OrangeHRM’s capabilities in creating a culture that promotes diversity and all other HR solutions by booking a FREE demo here.
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