Diversity and Human Rights Management e-Bulletin: Diversity and Competitive Advantage

Late last year an important new report demonstrated a strong positive correlation between diversity and economic competitiveness. The report offers yet more evidence of the bottom-line reasons for addressing your organization's diversity performance.

The report, Competing on Creativity: Placing Ontario's Cities in North American Context (full text available at www.toronto.ca/business) examines the relationship between creativity, social diversity and knowledge-intensive economic growth in city-regions in Ontario and the rest of Canada. The report shows two factors are strongly associated with a region's ability to attract and retain highly educated workers: the region's population of creative people in arts and cultural activities and a region's openness to diverse communities.

While the report has many regional implications - for example, for Ontario's immigration and settlement policies - the report's findings also speak directly to those organizations seeking to add talent and productivity to their workforce.

Company-based research has demonstrated that teams composed of employees from diverse backgrounds are more productive and creative. But we cannot assume this happens naturally. The productivity of mixed teams is enhanced when a company supports diverse teams with training, a harassment-free workplace, and other programs designed to build diversity awareness and skills in team members.

Other researchers have demonstrated that while organizations know they ought to "retire the homogenous ideal" and identify those persons truly able to bring talent and creativity to the workplace, this may be more easily said than done. Many employees are afraid of diversity for two reasons: they do not believe a more diverse workforce will make a performance difference and they are anxious lest they themselves "make a mistake" or not know what to do if they find themselves working in more diverse environments.

A report such as the one recounted in this e-Bulletin can help to allay the first fear. The second fear requires organizations to acknowledge "diversity concerns" in their employees and create settings - training, meetings, taskforces, focus groups, etc. - where employees can voice their views about diversity and be assisted to gain greater interpersonal diversity competence.

Charles Novogrodsky and Associates offers comprehensive one-stop consulting on diversity and human rights management.

For free and confidential telephone consultation or to receive free Special Reports, call (416) 534-5891.

Website: www.connectingwithdiversity.com