CEDR Two Minute Trainer: How Workplace Diversity Can Benefit Your Practice

Writing the Perfect Job Ad to Get The Best Employees

The notion that diversity is beneficial to a workplace is nothing new, but did you know that mounting research actually indicates that diversity boosts a business’s bottom line? As smaller employers, we often don’t give much thought to how to increase diversity on our teams, as we tend to focus more on how to attract the best and most qualified talent we can get. But like everything, a little more attention can result in real benefits. Decades of studies show the benefits of diversity to include measurable improvements to a company’s culture, decision making, problem solving, retention, innovation, flexibility and marketing potential. Now we can add more profit to that list!

While diversity is generally good for business, incorporating it can prove difficult. This may be because people unconsciously doubt the benefits to be real. Recent studies demonstrate that most people have an internal bias that actually assumes that diversity sparks interpersonal conflict, or that homogenous groups are more harmonious. This bias may lead to unconscious choices in hiring people most like the team we already have. So, how can we create more diversity, and reap the benefits that come with it?

First, What Do We Mean by Diversity in the Workplace?

Typically, a diverse workplace includes an employee population comprised of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientation, ages, religions, and belief systems. But true diversity comes not just from the group members’ personal characteristics, but from maintaining a culture that is open and encouraging of diverse ideas and approaches, and which allows people to be who they are without having to fit in or deny the thing that makes them unique or different.

And that’s another thing we have to overcome. When we have only one or two minority people on our team, without good strategies for inclusion, those people end up “covering” or de-emphasizing traits that are different from the majority group. Thus, the team gets little to no benefit, because covering leads to reduced self-confidence and weaker commitment to the business, which flat-out leads to lower performance and higher turnover. So, it’s not just in recruiting and hiring that we need diversity, but also in our retention efforts, policy making, and culture creation.

Creating Diversity and a Culture of Inclusion

Here are some ways you can create both diversity in your workforce and the culture of inclusion necessary to maximize the benefits:

Ask your employees, especially those who are minorities, parents, religious, the only male on your team, or different in some other way, if they feel included? This kind of open and honest communication can initiate great discussions, increase awareness, and spark brainstorming.

Look for ways to recruit and hire from different sources to create a team that reflects the diversity of your community. This could mean reaching out to community organizations, churches, or cultural groups as part of your hiring efforts. You may enlist help and suggestions from nonprofit groups like the NAACP, the National Urban League, National Council of La Raza, or even from social media in ways that will feature your practice as a progressive employer and innovator.

Encourage marketing and direct campaigns to the minority communities that your team already belongs to. This not only creates inclusion and passion among your team members, but it may help you attract a new patient base who now feels more comfortable visiting your office.

Build employee loyalty by offering benefits that are more inclusive to minority groups. For example, consider adding a child care subsidy, flexible schedules, parental leave, or a floating holiday for people to use for religious holidays or cultural celebrations at a time of their choosing throughout the year.

Make your bathrooms all-gender accessible.

In your job ads, include multi-lingual staff language abilities, and take care to be culturally sensitive when describing what makes your practice a good place to work.

Helping Your Practice Understand and Benefit from Diversity

Your office manager(s) must fully understand the benefits of a diverse workplace, as they will be implementing your personnel policies and must be fully committed to supporting them. All employees should understand that hiring decisions are based on finding the best candidate and not fulfilling quotas. Employees who perceive that your hiring decisions are fair, non-preferential and based on merit will testify to that effect in the event of a discrimination claim.

As you work on encouraging diversity in your practice so you can better serve your community, making the recruiting process more transparent can help ease the minds of skeptical employees and build confidence. As an added benefit, your demonstrable good-faith efforts to eliminate employment discrimination, harassment, and retaliation will serve you well if a disgruntled former employee ever decides to make you the target of a frivolous lawsuit.

By hiring a diverse workforce from the widest possible pool of applicants, while reaching out to all potential patients in your community, you can stay within the law while growing your practice at the same time.

Three Things You Can Take Away:

• Diversity is more than just employing people with varied backgrounds and characteristics; it’s about maintaining a culture that is open and encouraging of diverse ideas and approaches.
• Diversity benefits not just your culture, but your marketing efforts, innovation, problem solving, and even your bottom line.
• Get your team’s buy-in and understanding, and train your managers not just on non-discrimination but on inclusive communication.

Need help or have follow-up questions? Members may call 866-414-6056 to speak with an advisor.