How diversity can positively impact the emotional and mental wellbeing of a business
It’s not about box-ticking or about running a Noah’s Ark-style recruitment process, that’s for certain. Inclusiveness is about nurturing an environment where everyone in the company is respected and valued equally. It’s about welcoming diversity and creating an environment where all types of people can thrive and succeed. This means embracing a workforce from the widest possible pool of talent including candidates of various ages, ethnicities, disabilities, marital or family status, religions or cultural backgrounds, sexual orientation and gender identity.
The benefits of diversity and inclusiveness don’t just have an impact on the commercial side of a business, they also add to the emotional and mental wellbeing of a business too. This in turn aids productivity and ultimately the bottom-line.
Disruption from diversity
There’s a lot of talk about disruption in business; different ways of working and different approaches to communication and process. This ‘disruption’ stems from diversity and inclusiveness. Creativity and innovation come from having conversations that involve varying influences and from people with different experiences. Just because something is done a certain way now, doesn’t mean that the process can’t change. Having a mix of people, backgrounds, experience, lifestyles and interests, means that they merge their perspective of problem-solving with their colleagues’ interpretation, resulting in faster solutions.
By default, diverse workforces also foster a culture of inclusiveness. If someone from a different background – either culturally or professionally – is involved in a discussion where they’re nervous that their opinion will not be seen as valuable as everyone else’s, human nature will drive them to seek an environment where they feel wanted and valued. Ensuring staff feel included leads to better retention and contributes to managing their stress levels and, therefore, their health, wellbeing and peace of mind.
One area of diversity that is often undervalued is generational. In Cigna’s recent 360 Wellbeing survey, it was found that while 54 per cent of the respondents anticipated working into their old age, only 18 per cent stated that companies were willing to hire older workers.
The population is living longer, and it is predicted that within 20 years over a quarter of the UK population will be over 65 – and by 2020, a third of the workforce will be over 50. Older workers bring experience and again, a different perspective to work. They can often help fast track younger workers’ learning by mentorship.
Gender diversity is also often overlooked; mainly gender identity and dysphoria. Cigna has always believed it’s extremely important to advance LGBT+ equality, both for Cigna’s workforce and for our clients’ employees. By taking a strategic and structured approach to inclusion within our own workplace, we can also support our customers by making our healthcare plans more inclusive, which is why we were the first healthcare provider to offer pre-operative counselling.
Staff whose first language is not English may appreciate comprehensive agendas for meetings to enable them to prepare. People of different faiths may welcome a prayer room or flexible working to observe their religious obligations.
Staff with children may require flexible working or extra time off - can they be offered that, or have they not been because of tradition? It’s drilling down to what matters to staff and what could be a cause of stress or anxiety.
Senior management has a very strong role to play in creating a diverse and inclusive workforce
There are many ways companies can support generational diversity. As work processes change rapidly, technology will take over many roles. To counteract feelings of insecurity, employers can start considering what skills are needed and initiate training to up-skill workers.
Resistance to diversity in the workplace can often stem from traditional views held by like-minded employees. It’s always important to embrace diversity when recruiting. Of course, having the relevant skills is fundamental, but why not widen the net and search outside the usual narrow pool of your own industry.
Leaders need to be trained in unconscious bias, something that is unintentional but frequent. Every layer of management should automatically be considerate of the different motivation and needs of its team.
One of the major reasons people cite for leaving a job is management. Recruitment is an expensive process and disrupts productivity and teams, so by maintaining a happy, healthy and included workforce, a loyal workforce is nurtured.
Clients also welcome diversity
Clients are also demanding diversity as they appreciate the adaptability it adds to a company’s credentials. Moreover, diversity and inclusiveness are the cornerstones to building a modern and adaptable business model where staff’s wellbeing is just as important as the financial performance metrics.
To ignore diversity in your workplace can lead to uniformity, which in turn leads to boredom and lack of creativity and stimulation. Embrace diversity and inclusiveness and you could find the view from your business becomes more ambitious than you ever thought.
The author is Phil Austin is CEO of Cigna Europe.
This article is provided by Cigna.
If you'd like to hear a lot more on the topic of employee wellbeing, and also specifically from Cigna, then sign up for Employee Wellbeing Congress on 20 June in London, where they'll be exhibiting.
In partnership with Cigna Intellectual Property Inc
Cigna is one of the world's largest investor-owned global health service companies.
