How to Manage Diversity in the Workplace? So, how can organizations manage diversity at workplace? How can leaders ensure that steps are taken and efforts are made towards promoting a heterogeneous, tolerant, open and conflict-less, diverse culture. Communicate Better Whether it is about KPIs, work schedules, organization policies or any other matter; leaders/managers need to ensure these are effectively communicated to employees. Policies, procedures, norms and rules should be conveyed in a way that overcomes any language and cultural barrier that may arise. Use translations, pictures, infographics, etc – whatever suits best to ensure inclusive communication. Encourage Diverse Teams Diverse work teams get employees the exposure of working with different people, understand different perspectives, learn to value one another’s opinions and ward off any cultural misunderstandings. Let your teams come together and work out ways to achieve goals collectively. Encourage them to acknowledge different viewpoints, giving opportunities to people to express their ideas and suggestions. Build a Stronger Connect Connect with your people, be sensitive towards their unique culture and backgrounds, find out what motivates them. Everyone, no matter what race, gender or demographic, wants to be heard and understood. When you understand what works or does not work for your employees, you can engage each team member better and enhance their efficiency and productivity. Be Receptive Embrace the difference! Encourage your employee to express their opinions, suggestions, recommendations and concerns and be receptive to these. Look for ways to bring in diverse minds together to achieve goals. Offer platforms for your employees to give feedback, run an employee feedback survey or a culture survey to gain better understanding of how employees feel about working at their organizations and what are the issues they may be facing. Employee feedback both positive and negative, is valuable and acts as a catalyst to bring about change. Make Diversity Part of Your Hiring Hire talent from across backgrounds is perhaps the simplest step towards building a diverse organization. Hiring managers/line managers should keep all sorts of bias at bay while screening and assessing talent. Incorporate a diverse interview panel, train your managers on what aspects are to be focused on while interviewing. A lot of organizations practice blind hiring these days. Blind hiring is a practice aimed at eliminating biases (over the demographic information of potential hires like race, ethnicity, gender and age, etc.) in recruitment and improving workplace diversity.