The CEO of Seramount, Subha Barry here presents the business case of diversity, offering tips and insights into how to bring greater diversity into the workplace, in a way that is beneficial to all.

Barry begins by contrasting the situation in 2021 with how it was ten years ago, when she was a senior executive at investment bank Merrill Lynch.  Then, diversity was a governmentally mandated program, with EEOC Requirements forming a basis for a lot of the DE&I work.  Much of the focus was on the market side – targeting more diverse groups of customers and clients.

In 2021 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is a much more far-reaching project.  Following the disparities thrown up by the pandemic and by the deaths of George Floyd and other victims of violence, there has been a much greater focus on systemic racism and bias, both within organizations and processes.

An example she gives is the bias that may be exhibited by an all-male, all-white panel when interviewing employment candidates, even when there’s an explicit instruction to engage in more diverse hiring.

FIVE WAYS TO MAKE A BUSINESS CASE FOR DIVERSITY

Barry has five key tips for helping make the business case for more entrenched DE&I work:

1. Speak the language of business leaders. Helping leaders see that the ethnic stereotypes they may have grown up with are wrong and there are valuable untapped resources in diverse communities.
2. Utilize big data. There’s more evidence than ever before that diverse working groups, for example, beat homogenous ones hands down in problem solving, because they bring different insights and assumptions to the table.  Diversity drives innovation, and this can be backed up with data.
3. Minimize Staff turnover. A recent study showed that more than 50% of women of color in large organizations are waiting out the pandemic to leave their organizations for better opportunities.  This shocking degree of turnover can be mitigated by building workplaces that respect differences and build a more tolerant culture.
4. Diversity of Perspective Drives Innovation. Building on point two above, it can be shown that the different backgrounds and experiences that diverse employees have can increase creativity and innovation.  To leverage this, employers must recognize that employees from different backgrounds may have to take time out from busy lives to make a special effort to fit into a homogenous organization.  Draining energy resources by expecting everyone to “fit in” is unwise and alienating.
5. Diverse employees have different expectations. Appreciating this builds a more flexible workplace.  Stakeholder capitalism is the term to bear in mind, replacing a shareholder-focused approach with a more all-encompassing on, where staff, vendors, custom

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