How The Audio Visual Industry Can Empower And Benefit From Diversity In The Workplace

What is Diversity in the Workplace?

The history of workplace diversity has changed to include equity, equality, diversity and inclusion, from well before the 1960s up until today. It has been a growing practice over time and today it has several meanings. The easiest way to explain diversity in the workplace is to show a company that hires individuals from different backgrounds. This can pertain to gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, education and other criterion.

With awareness and self-growth, people can remove internal biases and do what is fair towards all members of our community. We are focusing more on inclusion and equal opportunities in the AV industry. Something that should be common sense and not up for discussion, unfortunately requires awareness and challenging our own internal thought processes. Often, we do not even realize we have such biases until we look objectively within our workplaces.

How to Incorporate Diversity at your Workplace

1. Offer training and education for all employees and further details for human resources and recruiting teams
2. Commit to hiring based on qualifications first, always
3. Target key hiring websites that promote diversity
4. Always have a diverse interview panel so multiple perspectives can be considered
5. Highlight diversity in your company values and across all social channels
6. Commit resources to rewarding diversity referrals and creating targeted internships

Benefits of Diversity

1. Higher productivity through the inclusion of the brightest and most capable talent in the workforce. The ability to find greater efficiencies and effectiveness in business operations.
2. Greater creativity with new ideas and experiences from people from different walks of life, with an exposure to diverse learning.
3. Increasing revenue by marketing to multiple segments with first-hand insights from employees. Also, being able to uncover new segments through the experience of diverse employees and company owners.
4. Higher employee engagement through inclusion and being able to motivate and challenge everyone through different engagement strategies. When you care and put in the time, you see the results.
5. Reduced employee turnover due to higher employee satisfaction, which results in less time and resources being spent on training new employees and recruiting.
6. Better company reputation across multiple audiences which creates greater brand awareness and social responsibility. This in turn will increase revenue and company relatability with customers.
7. Stronger cultural insights help you market to your customers in a more meaningful way and be able to compete with more detail and accuracy as compared to competitors. This helps manage a greater market share.
8. Wider range of skillsets are available which helps a company spend less time retraining employees and more time being flexible, effective, and quick to adapt to the changing market and business needs. This provides a competitive edge over others.

Future of Diversity in the Workplace

It is important to consider any potential challenges that can come up with greater diversity in the workplace. By having clear communication and guidelines, we can eliminate potential misunderstandings due to different cultural mindsets and perceptions. We must also be mindful of key cultural events, celebrations, global awareness days for various causes, and language sensitivity, to properly be inclusive of all employees and company owners.

Another key difference is language barriers and the finer nuances of grammar, which can be overcome by translating into various languages to adhere to the different needs of employees, departments, countries, branches, shareholders, and partners. By involving a diverse workforce in the planning and creation of processes, we are better equipped to communicate with everyone and build a culture of inclusion and diversity in the workplace.