Topic: HR Consulting for Startups

Doesn’t matter, whether you think about gender diversity, cultural diversity, or religious diversity – working together with different people will always be a big part of the workplace. Diversity and Inclusion are really important, and with proper management, you can also unlock the huge potential of your diverse team. How can you do that? Read our article and find it out!

Diversity is the condition or fact of being different or varied. Understanding this condition means being aware of the fact that each individual is unique and has different backgrounds, ideas, and behaviours. The dimensions of diversity can be race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies.

The first step is understanding that diversity is an opportunity and not an obstacle. Even if it could make conversation and confrontation harder, it’s a chance to learn something new about other thinking styles and ways of living and it creates new perspectives. Diversity stimulates curiosity and makes our lives more intriguing and less boring.

Although it can be challenging, diversity in a team is crucial to get out of the comfort zone and be more innovative. When the team thinks alike, ideas are not so often challenged and some different angles of a situation might be missed out, as well as learning opportunities and personal development.

When different people join the team, it is also important to assess whether the manager and the team can handle this diversity. Having different approaches to managing the workload, or having more opinions and points of view to handle, it can be challenging. People need to feel comfortable in dealing with the new employee and not everybody is open to it. When a team is open-minded then it is possible to handle diversity and the key is to focus on similarities. Instead of highlighting what are the differences, it’s worth a try to think or discover what are common interests or ideas. People spend 8 hours a day with their colleagues, of course, it’s easier when there is more affinity. 

There is seldom the case where a person doesn’t fit in a team, it’s always a matter of acceptance. This anyway requires a certain level of maturity and openness. It’s easy to say but hard to implement, but there are always some common views or points of connection which can make the relationship easier.

A diverse team also makes the environment more interesting: it is nice sometimes to be shocked about some habits or practices and to challenge yourself in trying to understand why a person says something or think in a certain way. 

Diversity is often seen as an obstacle, but in fact, it’s one of the biggest opportunities a company can have! If you think about organizational diversity, there are many different views and strategies to handle similarities and differences within your organization. Handling diversity is not always an easy path, but the benefits of a diverse team could be a success factor for innovation!

Federica Viviani, Communications Specialist