Why Diversity Improves Teamwork
Diverse Teams Deliver Better Results
The 21st century is well under way and the differences which once kept us apart are now the driving force behind our prosperity. What before set us apart now makes us special. We can all offer things that others can’t. Whether that’s in a practical sense in the workforce or as part of a casual conversation in the office, it all benefits the team. It all makes us prosper.
Honestly, what’s worse for your job satisfaction than arriving on a Monday morning to find your colleagues talking about the same old crap they were last week?
Not much, is the answer.
The solution: to diversify. The ideal workplace should be an environment that attracts people from different educational and socioeconomic backgrounds who all share a common interest. A team should therefore consist of the right combination of this, that and a bit of je ne sais quoi.
Diverse Teams Deliver Better Results
Diversity is a key factor in determining the success of a team.
Now I’ve worked in various teams, including an Adventure Travel Sales team, a Customer Service team in a call centre, and most recently in the Student Ambassador team at my university.
The Sales job was very casual. We had a shop located on the route between the backpacker hostels and the sites of Brisbane and we would tout potential customers as they walked past, trying to lure them into the shop. When I joined the team, I was the only guy out of six employees, and the only one under twenty-eight. I was also one of only two native English speakers.
Immediately the whole team started to do better; we smashed the month’s target and tripled our earnings from the previous month. The funny thing? Looking at the stats, everyone’s commission figures had shot into orbit; I wasn’t the only one to benefit.
The reason for the success was that our team was now much more diverse. So we were able to fulfil a broader range of roles, cover a wider range of angles, and reach out to a broader range of customers.
The same thing happened in reverse a year later. By that point, we were four guys and two girls. Three of us were British and we had one non-native English speaker. Diversity was lacking until we hired a German girl to round the team out again. This was a smart move: her presence helped us to top the sales ranking in one month. We’d been getting ripped by a rival shop down the road, who’d been taking a lot of our German clientele. She changed that. As for the rest of us, our figures didn’t go down; they increased. We weren’t wasting time on potential customers we had less of a chance with, and we were finally able to focus on our main customer base. We all prospered from the diversification. We were a happy team and our shop had the best vibe in Brisbane.
The Technology Industry Needs Diversity
Diversity is exceptionally important in the tech industry. Because technology doesn’t affect one, discreet demographic; it plays a significant role in everyone’slives. It goes without saying that users of technology aren’t all white, well-off males. They’re not sophisticated tech-savvies either.
This begs the question: how do you respond to the evolving needs of such a diverse client base, captivating an audience made up of all ages, genders, and ethnic backgrounds? Well, with a diverse team of course.
#SheCanCode
Originally posted here.
