Encouraging diversity in the workplace is not only good from a moral standpoint, but it also leads to higher team morale which leads to more productivity. The COVID pandemic certainly didn’t act as a catalyst for productivity, but it did make many companies realize that their employees can perform well from the remote workplace, and many are planning on allowing their employees to continue remote work after the pandemic is finally a thing of the past.
With these remote work setups, there is an even greater opportunity for diversity in the workplace, but with that comes an even larger need for increased focus on training and cultural awareness to ensure all employees feel empowered and welcomed. The increases in remote work led to advancements in technology to help enable the remote workforce, and improvements in e-learning capabilities were another silver lining of the pandemic.
Here is a look at 4 ways new technologies and e-learning capabilities can help advance your workplace’s diversity, and ultimately increase productivity.
Bias-free Software for Hiring
Even the most good-natured, forward-thinking human beings can still possess implicit biases that are ingrained in their heads and thus cause unfair decision-making from time to time, even though the bias was not a conscious thought. Though often related to race, a lot of implicit bias in the workplace tends to affect women, especially in business and tech.
Software that searches for keywords in cover letters and resumes do so without knowing what race, age, gender, etc. that a given applicant is, helping reduce the chances that any sort of bias, whether intentional or not, exists in the early stages of narrowing down potential employees.
Tech That Informs
Just as some folks have no ill-intent when they make a decision resulting from implicit bias, many companies (or at least employees in the HR department of those companies) are unaware of wage gaps and hiring proportions that exist within their company, and thus have no motivation to act against it, as they are in the dark.
Data analysis software focused on employee benefit packages can show your team which employees receive which types of compensation, and determine if the demographics of these individuals are disproportionately based on gender, race, age, sexuality, etc.
Language Barriers
Though there are certainly some parts of communication that are more difficult in a remote workplace, language barriers are easier to overcome with the help of technology, especially in e-learning. The United States is one of only a few countries in the world with no official language, and many companies in the U.S. hire talent from all across the globe. Thanks to translation offerings, providing training to employees across a nearly infinite amount of languages is easier than ever.
Cultural Awareness
Another benefit of the remote workplace is, when offered, the ability to see what colleagues in other locales are doing, or how their weather and landscape are. For small, remote teams, having meetups via Zoom or a similar service allows for a team member to share a bit about their cultures. Encouraging something like an adult show-and-tell is a great way to let your team members educate each other about customs and culture they practice.
Motivate Your Team
The availability of technology that can be used to bolster your team’s diversity is not scarce, but many still choose to educate themselves. Making it a focal point of what you talk about on a day-to-day basis serves as much as a catalyst to strengthening your team’s cultural awareness as does the actual technological offerings mentioned here.
