Minority Employees: How to Promote Workplace Diversity?

6 of September, 2022

It’s common knowledge that the HR of any business can both make and break it. Since they play a key role in developing, reinforcing, and shaping the culture of the organization, HR sets the tone of how the organization is perceived and experienced by employees. For this reason, when workplace diversity and the inclusion of minority employees is concerned, there is no better department to be at the forefront than HR. Therefore, how can HR promote workplace diversity?

Creating an organization that is truly diversity-conscious and inclusive is easier said than done. With so many factors to take into account, more work goes into building a truly inclusive workplace than one might initially think. Difficult doesn’t mean impossible though, it is still possible. And your HR department can help you do it. 

How To Accommodate Minority Employees in a Workspace

Interested in promoting workplace diversity in your organization and creating an inclusive environment for minority employees? Here is a guide you can follow.

It All Starts With the Model 

When looking to build an inclusive company, the first thing HR should do is to create an organized modeling structure; one that promotes diversity and inclusivity. Such a structure provides a model for the business to follow and a standard to meet. Having such a modeling structure influences everything your organization’s HR does.

From recruitment and onboarding to outsourcing and other activities. Organizations with inclusive models are more inclusive than those without. This is not just the case because HR hires more minority employees, but because they provide a structure that allows their minority employees to thrive. 

One way HR divisions of these companies do it is by not only focusing on finding the best and brightest minds for the job, but also on finding individuals who are capable of working on a diverse team. This simple switch has helped several organizations become more inclusive and keeps helping others every day. 

Create Opportunities for Minority Employees

This is a strategic way to promote diversity that would create a sense of inclusivity for minority employees. HR teams can get creative and think up ways they can create opportunities that can boost inclusivity in the workplace. 

For instance, if there’s an urgent project that demands attention, the brightest minds from different ethnic groups can be placed in charge of the project. This not only creates diversity in the workplace, but would create a synergy that has the potential to boost efficiency and productivity.

Create Forums for Difficult Conversations

The two tips listed above help you create an inclusive work environment. This one is what helps you maintain it. Creating forums that discuss challenging and difficult conversations helps bring minority employees together. This way, members of the community of the organization can talk about how they feel about certain situations and how it affects them. 

This helps create a sense of bonding and acceptance of the diverse community of an organization. Doing this has a way of strengthening the workforce. Consequently, increasing its capacity to take on more tasks and work together as a team.

A final thought

Diversity in today’s business world is fundamental. With that in mind, productivity is just as important if not more. The pursuit of creating a more diverse workplace should never lead to HR teams putting underqualified employees into the workplace, just to meet quotas. 

This is why monitoring and managing performance is so important in an inclusive workplace. One of the ways to do this is through the use of reliable HR Software like Sesame’s people database tool. With solutions like this, you will end up with a workplace that is not only inclusive of minority employees but one that also remains at peak performance every time.