Invest in inclusion, reap your return now

Now, more than ever, it’s clear that employees look for and benefit from positive workplace cultures that are cultivated best by adept inclusive leaders. Inclusion makes staff feel welcomed and supported, enhancing their sense of belonging, motivation, and satisfaction. But, notably, prioritizing inclusion is not just the ethical thing to do out of consideration for staff well-being–it also happens to be one of the most powerful approaches to boosting a company’s bottom line.

Hard results are impossible without soft skills

In traditional business thinking, we often focus on “hard skills” that are relatively easy to list on a resume—educational and career experience and technical knowledge that translate clearly into on-the-job know-how. Yet, so-called “soft skills,” the traits and sensibilities that underpin individual work ethic and shape our interpersonal interactions, play a tremendous role in company dynamics. In fact, soft skills such as self-awareness, empathy, emotional and cultural
intelligence are essential to driving team collaboration, foster engagement, and innovation, and reduce turnover. Leaders with strong soft skills can work in partnership while putting their unique individual expertise to good use, enhancing staff productivity that translates into company profitability. Inclusion is the thread that pulls this all together.

Let an inclusive workplace culture work for you

When employees are thriving in a company culture where they genuinely feel they belong, superior business outcomes follow:

• Empowered individual performance: Employees who feel their voice is heard on the job are 5.3x more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work. At the same time, a survey by 15five discovered that 90% of employees admit to performing better when their company supports their emotional wellness.

• Deeper sense of belonging: The latest research on global human capital trends indicates widespread acknowledgment that a sense of belonging drives organizational performance. An inclusive workplace culture facilitates staff feeling uniquely valued, respected, and treated relatively–the hallmarks of belonging associated with improved team outcomes.

• Stronger teamwork: Speaking of team performance, researchers find employees in highly diverse and inclusive organizations show 26% more team collaboration and 18% more team commitment (CEB/Gartner). Another analysis reveals that employees working under inclusive leadership show a 17% uptick in performance, a 20% boost in decision-making quality, and enhancement of team collaboration by 29%.

• More efficiency: Inclusive teams do better work in less time, making decisions twice as fast with half the meetings and landing on better business decisions up to 87% of the time.

• Greater staff loyalty, engagement, and retention: Genuinely inclusive Companies–not simply diverse–are 3x more likely to retain millennials for 5+ years. Positive experiences of inclusion also correspond with 35% of employee’s emotional investment in their work and the company’s mission and 20% of intent to remain with an organization (Catalyst).

• Staying competitive in the eyes of an increasingly socially conscious workforce: 60% of Gen Zs see systemic racism as widespread in general society, and nearly 70% of employees would consider leaving their job for an alternative organization whose viewpoints better align with the social and cultural issues they care about. Crucially, inclusive companies are more likely to be in tune with employees’ values and resonate with their social consciousness, supporting staff who are directly impacted by oppression and moving everyone closer to achieving equity.

• Positive brand identity in recruitment and marketing: It turns out that most job seekers (70%) value a commitment to diversity in potential employers, and even more job seekers and employees (76%) report that a diverse workforce is an essential factor when evaluating companies and job offers. Inclusive workplace cultures allow organizations to build a positive brand identity and favorable reputation, mainly through the website content that connects them to their market community and can attract desirable prospective hires. In a PwC survey, 54% of women and 45% of men said they researched if a company had diversity and inclusion policies in place when deciding to accept a job offer. Yet, that same survey found that less than half of women and only a third of men inquire about these policies during the interview process, while almost a quarter of companies reported that they do not incorporate diversity and inclusion within their brand. So companies with inclusive cultures reflected in their brand outreach–especially websites that are commonly the source of insights about this–have more positive marketing exposure and a recruiting edge.

The most important investment leaders can make in themselves

According to organizational studies guru Edgar H. Schein, “leadership creates and changes cultures, while management and administration act within a culture.” As we’ve explored before, an inclusive workplace culture starts–or can stall–within organizational leaders. Leaders are mainly responsible for shaping company culture through the goals and performance measures they establish to assess company success and the example they provide in modeling, valuing, and developing soft skills that can foster a sense of community and social responsibility within an organization. Leaders influence company culture in many ways, and making an effort to cultivate inclusion is the best way to ensure that a workplace is a space where all employees will thrive.