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A LinkedIn study highlighted the improvements to team performance diversity can bring. According to the report:
- 60 per cent of respondents said that diversity within their sales team has contributed to their teams’ success.
- Organisations in the top quartile for gender diversity have a +25 per cent likelihood of financially outperforming their peers.
- Organisations in the top quartile for ethnic diversity have a +36 per cent likelihood of financial outperformance.
- Diverse companies earn 2.5x higher cash flow per employee.
- Inclusive teams are over 35 per cent more productive.
- Diverse teams make better decisions 87 per cent of the time.
The benefits of cultivating diverse teams were further outlined in an HR Leader article. Things like morale, engagement, belonging, job satisfaction, creativity, innovation, decision making, and communication were all outlined as seeing a boost within diverse workplaces.
William Hong, director of Talk to a Broker, has been developing and maintaining a diverse team of brokers. He says this has helped to create a healthy and thriving workplace.
“We have close to a 50-50 male to female ratio. We have a very strong team of females who are in the management in my business. I’ve got four in total, three of them are girls,” said Hong.
Further to this, Hong’s team of 20 can speak 18 languages. This has allowed for opportunities to connect with a variety of different clients and deliver a broader range of services.
“I feel very strongly about having people who can speak multiple languages. Having that opens up a lot of opportunities to different markets. And not just that, being able to speak multiple languages really is a big skill set,” he said.
“In our brokering space, there are a lot of minority communities. I’ve got a broker who is Iranian and there’s a community inside Sydney, the Iranian community, they’re all very tight-knit, and I can say this about a lot of communities. They generally stick to their own or they want to speak to someone that speaks their language and they’re comfortable with that. So, breaking down that trust barrier and having someone that you can actually relate to on your own level.”
Gender and cultural diversity are just one component. Hong also champions age diversity, bringing a generational mix of varied perspectives to the table.
“We’ve got people from very different backgrounds, different ages as well. I think one thing to not ignore is age diversity,” Hong said.
“When we recruit, people ask me, how do you build diversity in your team? I look at the best resume. I don’t look at people’s names … The education’s fine. But really what we’re looking for is what your work history has been and what your work ethic’s like.
“So, your resume gets you the phone call, the way that you speak on the phone, the way that you present yourself and the work ethic that you provide is what gets you on the job and gets you the job.”
Diversity goes beyond hiring, however. Workplaces that celebrate and encourage inclusion are better equipped to develop a healthy and happy environment.
“We cater a lot to people’s religious values and beliefs. One of our staff is Muslim and they practice Ramadan. So, we were very flexible. We let them start earlier, finish earlier just so that they could go home and break fasting. People’s holidays, religious holidays, events, Christmas and Easter, whatever it might be, we are very open to that stuff,” Hong said.
“The whole team building thing comes from the top as well. I push that down across all layers of management. No one’s isolated in our team. Everyone has someone to talk to and has the support. And it does flow on. If people aren’t performing, they go up and speak to their uppers and they can even speak to me. I sit on the floor. I don’t sit in a separate office.
“So, I have juniors coming to talk to me about deals. I’m busy, but they’ll come talk to me as the director of business … You’ve got to be able to be relatable, talkable and present.”
[Related: The fight to promote diversity in commercial broking]
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