Diversity in the workplace – a conundrum or a reality!!
“Australia’s population grew by 1.4% during the year ended 30 June 2016; of this, natural increase contributed 46.1% whilst overseas migration contributed 53.9% respectively to total population growth for the year ended 30 June 2016. ” ( ABS, June 2016).
Given these demographics, organisations will be need to utilise a diverse workforce to optimise employment opportunities as we head into the future.
To foster a more diverse organisation, please refer to the suggestions below:
- Develop a hiring strategy to increase workforce diversity,
- Explore and extend your talent searching opportunities to capture candidates from a more diverse background pool,
- From the outset, create a captivating job advert, which is culturally sensitive and attracts candidates to a highly diverse organisation,
- Be willing to invest time in recruiting candidates from Non-English speaking backgrounds,
- Put measures in place to ensure a skilled older workforce is working alongside unskilled employees to obtain that knowledge and make provisions for knowledge to be retained within the organisation,
- Develop retention strategies for the older workforce to try retain them for as long as possible within the organisation,
- Develop succession planning to ensure employees are afforded opportunities to be promoted and developed which will assist with retention,
- Develop an employee referral scheme to attract candidates,
- Provide diversity training in your workplace and
- Offer other benefits such as willingness to accommodate cultural and religious practices.
Through the nurturing of diversity, organisations will be better equipped to deal with the challenges faced, retaining a skilled and effective workforce on and into the future.
For further information on fostering diversity, please contact Eva and the team at Nurture HR Consulting.
