House Of Commons: Stonewall Top 100 Employer
The House of Commons position sees an impressive rise of 88 places from last year to 28, reflecting the House s ongoing commitment to creating an inclusive workplace. Within the Government sector, the...
Welcome to VERCIDA website.
Skip to main contentCategory: Industry News, Achievements, Innovation, Business, struggle, performence
Faced with globalisation and rapid change, leadership has become a stressful, 24/7 preoccupation in which bosses suffer from cognitive overload and poor decision-making.
Although the challenges of businesses have changed, many operate as they were first established for white, middle class, middle aged men. They struggle to achieve the innovation, performance, and motivation benefits associated with cognitive diversity, the ability to learn from different points of view.
Dr Jacqui Grey, MD EMEA at NeuroLeadership Institute, spoke to us about the missing link in diversity.
“Numerous studies associate greater diversity with success. Businesses that are more racially and gender diverse tend to deliver higher sales and larger profits. Management teams with a wide range of experience and backgrounds produce more innovative products.
“But as most Boards are not diverse there is an inherent problem. Their ability to achieve cognitive diversity is hampered by unconscious biases and influences that affect behaviour and decision making.
“These include a tendency to have more empathy for people we see as [like] ourselves, to view things outside our own experience as more dangerous and to assume how we see the world is objectively true, instead of skewed by our own particular set of experiences.
“To become more diverse, businesses need to break these all too human failings and this requires organisational and personal mitigation. In recruitment, for example, leaders at every level should consider diversity in hiring decisions and push headhunters to deliver diverse shortlists.
“Neuroscientists recognise that the benefits of diversity are rarely obtained without a strong sense of inclusion. This does not only relate to minority groups. All employees can feel excluded and everyone needs to feel welcome and respected if teams are to benefit from their perspective and experience.
“Utilising IF-THEN plans help when developing new habits. A simple thought, such as ‘IF there is only one woman at the table, THEN I will ask her point of view first’, can create a new habit. With persistence, new behaviour will become automatic.
“Reducing fear of the unknown is also important. While collaboration feels like it flows more smoothly amongst homogenous groups, diverse teams, where there is sometimes more friction, are much more likely to arrive at the correct solution.
“Inclusion is all too often the missing link when it comes to diversity. Diverse teams need shared goals to become truly cohesive and people need clarity, autonomy, and recognition if they are to feel valued and accept the changes required to build better, more diverse organisations.”
VERCIDA works with over one hundred clients who are committed to creating an inclusive work environment. If you are an employer and interested in working with VERCIDA to promote your diversity and inclusion initiatives and attract the best candidates, please call 02037405973 or email info@vercida.com for more information.
We are also officially recommended by Disability Confident as a step on achieving Employer status, please click here for more information.
The House of Commons position sees an impressive rise of 88 places from last year to 28, reflecting the House s ongoing commitment to creating an inclusive workplace. Within the Government sector, the...
Seven jobs you didn t know existed on the railway April 22, 2020 The railway offers a huge variety of career opportunities, from 3D modelling to protecting our biodiversity. If you love anythin...
You may know who we are and what we do, but do you know why we do it? Through our new series, Diversity Diaries, we will be examining diversity, inclusion and equality in the workplace by diving dee...
Building on the last highly productive few months, UK Athletics is hitting the ground running at the start of 2021 to deliver several key activities as part of its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion...