Diversity rules! You should know these diversity management measures

Diversity management can be used constructively to create personal and social diversity in a company. Whether it is age, gender or ethnicity – the different characteristics of employees can be an advantage for employers, provided they are recognized and promoted.

We present effective measures to help you advance your diversity management.

Every company deals with diversity among employees differently. In principle, however, the concept of diversity management includes four steps that are similar everywhere.

1. First, the initial situation, i.e. the diversity found in the company, is determined: What is the composition of the workforce, partners and target groups in terms of age, gender, religious affiliation, etc.?
2. Then the planningto introduce diversity management or – if it already exists – to strengthen it. The goals and appropriate measures must be discussed, as well as possible risks, costs and duration.
3. Finally, it comes to implementation of the selected measures. Their effects are continuously monitored and optimized.
4. At the Evaluation The success of the measures taken is analyzed. This also determines how things will continue in the future and to which areas diversity management can be expanded.

There are various ways for employers to promote diversity in their team. The following options are suitable for companies that are new to the topic as well as those that want to expand on their existing measures.

In international teams, problems with communication and mutual understanding can arise. This can be counteracted by offering language courses or using translation tools.

Notices, publications and documents within companies can be in different languages, just like external communication. For example, job advertisements in different languages appeal to more (international) talent.

The everyday life of colleagues with children can be drastically different from that of employees without children. Companies can support parents among their employees in balancing children and work.

If it is a larger company that has many employees with children, it is possible to set up a company kindergarten or day care center. Smaller companies can support parents with flexible working hours and home office options, for example, so that they can pick up their children from school on time or ensure that they are looked after on certain days.

Even today, it is still far too common in the business world that a person's gender is given more weight than their skills when it comes to pay or allocation of responsibility.

To ensure greater justice here, we need a targeted Promoting women in companiesThis starts with gender-equitable communication and extends to putting together teams with different genders and equal pay for equal performance.

The gender issue goes far beyond the equal treatment of men and women. It is also about protecting transsexual people from discrimination - for example, by including them in the job advertisement (f/m/d) or protecting them from hostility in the workplace.

You might also be interested in: How to recruit without discrimination

If your company has employees with disabilities, you should adapt the workplace to their needs and ensure accessibility. Ideally, there are special contacts for the topics of inclusion and accessibility.

When teams are made up of a mix of ages, different levels of experience, values and ideas come together. Therefore, establishing a culture of mutual appreciation is particularly important in this context.

In addition, space should be created for knowledge transfer and exchange between generations. This naturally applies in both directions – the younger ones help the older ones and vice versa.

Die soziale Herkunft kann die Bildungs- und Berufs-Chancen eines Menschen stark beeinflussen. Zwar hört man häufig, dass „alle die gleichen Chancen hätten“, individuelle Lebensumstände machen dieser Theorie jedoch häufig einen Strich durch die Rechnung. Angehörigen von unteren Schichten ist der Zugang zu Ressourcen, die für einen erfolgreichen Werdegang in der Regel notwendig sind, häufig verwehrt.

Free training and mentoring programs for non-academics, open networking opportunities and supporting people with low levels of education in their training are possible approaches for companies to support these social groups.

You can benefit in many ways from the measures mentioned. Appreciating and promoting the individuality of your employees increases team cohesion and strengthens the Employee retentionBoth factors usually lead to an increase in performance. A "diverse team" also has a broad spectrum of different skills, the interaction of which ensures a high degree of creativity and innovative ability.

(Cover image source: Flamingo Images – Shutterstock.com)