Few would disagree that diversity has become an imperative for business success. Over the years, however, the benefits have become clearer and copious.

Below are a handful of highlights about the correlation between corporate diversity and corporate performance:

• Diversity among employees improves corporate culture and client relations, and decreases recruiting costs and training costs, according to a 2001 study by SHRM and Fortune magazine. In addition, diversity leads to higher worker retention, fewer complaints and litigation, and the organization’s improved ability to move into emerging markets.
• Corporate diversity promotes a better understanding of the marketplace, increases creativity and innovation, produces more effective problem-solving, enhances the effectiveness of corporate leadership and promotes more effective global relationships, while substantial costs exist for firms that do a poor job of integrating their diverse workforce, a 2003 paper in The Financial Review posits.
• Helping to bridge talent and generation gaps, diversity programs enhance a company’s position for hiring top talent as an “employer of choice” while providing additional opportunities to develop strategic partnership with customers and suppliers, according to a Material Handling & Logistics report on a supply chain seminar at the ProMat show in March.
• Teams that are made up of people from different disciplines, backgrounds and cultures come together to form high-performance teams capable of generating innovative ideas and executing break-though approaches more than teams that homogenous, Alliance Training & Consulting says.
• While cross-generational teams create challenges, they can also bring rewards, staffing and consulting firm Robert Half found. In a 2010 survey of 1,400 professionals in North America, nearly three-quarters of respondents said managing multi-generational work teams poses a challenge, more than one-third felt having a group of employees at different experience levels increases productivity.
• Managers, executives and other professionals who perceive diversity training in their organizations to be beneficial report career satisfaction and organizational commitment scores up to 14 percent higher than those working in organizations where diversity training is nonexistent or ineffective, according to a study published in the Journal of European Industrial Training last year.

“While some diversity practices have been put on hold during the recession — for example, diversity hiring programs may be suspended when there is no hiring — the findings clearly show that organizations are still making significant investments in diversity programs and these programs are having payoffs for those organizations,” Mark Schmit, SHRM’s director of research, said in an announcement of the Workplace Diversity Practices report.

Despite the steps companies have taken toward diversity and inclusion, many organizations continue to struggle with the challenge of workplace diversity.

“Many companies do, in fact, understand the importance that diversity and inclusion has for their marketplace but find themselves as challenged as ever to address and manage the issue,” according to Steve Pemberton, vice president and chief diversity officer at Monster.com.

“The U.S. workplace has experienced fundamental shifts over the last two decades that have had a major impact on business, including economic downturns, the introduction of new technology and the strengthening of laws designed to promote equality,” Dr. Sanja Licina, senior director of talent intelligence and consulting at CareerBuilder.com, recently said. “While companies have made strides in creating an inclusive workplace for all workers, there is still work to be done… .”

So, where to start?

In SHRM’s report, the top three workplace practices that organizations indicated using most were as follows:

1. Recruiting strategies designed to help increase diversity within the organization;
2. Diversity-related community outreach (e.g., links between organization and educational institutions); and
3. Alignment of diversity with business goals and objectives.

Taking workplace diversity a step further, one area to leverage is cognitive diversity.

While adding a mix of races, genders, ages, cultures, creeds and physical conditions can help produce a vibrant and quality-oriented organization, a skin-deep approach to diversity does not ensure business success. This is a good place to start, but organizations should not be satisfied stopping there. From among this diverse workforce, leaders should dig deeper by focusing on knowledge diversity, cultivating diverse thinkers with unique knowledge and experiences.

Resources

Workplace Diversity Practices: How Has Diversity and Inclusion Changed Over Time?
Society for Human Resource Management, Oct. 11, 2010

SHRM Poll: Workplace Diversity Weathers the Recession
Society for Human Resource Management, Oct. 11, 2010

Impact of Diversity Initiatives on the Bottom Line
by Society For Human Resource Management and Fortune magazine, 2001

Corporate Governance, Board Diversity and Firm Value
by David A. Carter, Betty J. Simkins and Gary W. Simpson
The Financial Review, Vol. 38 Iss. 1 (Feb. 1, 2003)

Diversity Helps Bridge the Talent and Generation Gaps
by David Blanchard
Material Handling & Logistics, March 23, 2011

The Medici Effect: How Workplace Diversity Improves Creativity and Performance
by Dale Mask
Alliance Training and Consulting, Inc., 2007

…Study Examines Shifting Workplace, Generational Attitudes in Transitioning Economy
Robert Half, July 14, 2010

The Relationship between Diversity Training, Organizational Commitment and Career Satisfaction
by Margaret Yap, Mark Robert Holmes, Charity-Ann Hannan and Wendy Cukier
Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 34 Iss. 6 (2010)

…Study Points to Improvements in Workplace Equality…
CareerBuilder.com, June 9, 2011

Why Organizations Struggle with Diversity Recruitment Initiatives
by Steve Pemberton
Monster.com

Does Diversity Still Matter in Today’s World of Work?
by Joe Gerstandt
MonsterThinking (Monster.com), June 21, 2011

Diversity’s Three Legged Stool
by Steve Pemberton
Monster.com, April 30, 2010

Setting Standards for Organizational Diversity Work
by Julie O’Mara and Alan Richter
QED Consulting, 2009