Dear Better Together,

I am so excited to hear that you want to start a diversity and inclusion committee. It is something I believe should be a part of every company. I’ve seen a few key themes come out of organizations that embrace and purposefully prioritize diversity. Check them out:

Your leadership team is probably interested in making more money. Do a happy dance because according to this study from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), companies with diverse management teams have 19% higher revenue. How? To simplify the multipage study, innovation = revenue. And diversity in experience, background, and vision = innovation. And, that means diversity = revenue. 

Not convinced? Check out this study from McKinsey that shows companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Yeah. It’s science.

And, just for fun, here’s one last fact drop about innovation, because it’s so important. Inclusive companies are 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market. Read more about diversity and innovation at Josh Bersin research.

How about decision making? No company wants to miss out on an opportunity to make better decisions. This white paper from online decision-making platform Cloverpop shows that when diverse teams make a business decision, they outperform individual decision-makers up to 87% of the time. “Unfortunately, non-inclusive decision-making is all-too common,” says the study’s author, Erik Larson. “All-male teams make about 38% of the decisions in a typical large company, and the gap is even worse among less diverse firms like those in Silicon Valley’s technology industry.” Don’t let your company make the costly mistake of excluding women from decision making opportunities. It’s probably the easiest way to increase revenue that I’ve ever heard of.

One of the most common questions I get from a candidate I’m working on placing is “How diverse is company XYZ?” According to Glassdoor, 67% of job seekers said a diverse workforce is important when considering job offers. This will increase revenue for the company (see point 1). If you want to make more money, you’ll want to hire great candidates. These great candidates will be diverse in gender, age, religion, race, ethnicity, cultural background, sexual orientation, religion, languages, and education. And they’ll want to see diversity in your company. It’s a cycle, and having a diverse workforce is really at the heart of it.  

I really hope that these studies help you in convincing your leadership team to invest in a diversity committee. It is so important, and the ROI is tremendous. Beyond the financial numbers, we are better humans when we have an opportunity to learn from and listen to people with different backgrounds than us. This is more important now than ever. 

Sincerely,
Jenny