How An Inclusive Mindset Can Benefit Your Business
How an inclusive mindset can benefit your business
The rapidly ageing population across Asia Pacific will only accelerate the shrinking of the region’s workforce. Competition among companies, and even countries, for this shrinking pool of talent and skills will be even more intense than it is today.
Amid this transforming workforce, traditional mindsets toward talent acquisition may soon be obsolete in the near future. Worse, sticking to conventional notions of what are considered talents could hinder recruitment efforts and consequently, business growth.
Organisations need to adapt to this changing workforce demographics now. Adopting a more inclusive mindset in their HR policies and recruitment practices is just the first step.
Access hidden sources of talents
A more inclusive mindset to nurturing your workplace culture will create an environment that is welcoming to once-overlooked groups of workers, such as older workers, returning mothers and persons with disabilities or special needs.
Whether it is focusing on one’s skills and expertise rather than their age, disabilities or special needs during hiring, or offering flexibility at the onset, these inclusive initiatives will only motivate such prospective candidates to join the organisation.
Even after these workers are hired, retaining them is then as much a responsibility of the organisation’s existing workforce as it is their inclusive policies. Organisations need to ensure their existing workforce has an inclusive mindset too, lest these employees feel out of place and leave.
Improve overall employee satisfaction
Organisations can inculcate this inclusive mindset by providing their entire workforce with sufficient diversity & inclusion trainings, as well as soft skills trainings to develop their ability to work with different groups of workers.
While such trainings could cultivate the inclusive environment needed to truly integrate older workers, persons with disabilities or special needs, and returning mothers into their organisation, there are other benefits for the organisation as well, specifically improving employee satisfaction across their larger workforce.
According to the 2019 APAC Workforce Insights, organisations that provide such trainings could see at least 30% more employees satisfied with their company. Such employee satisfaction would go a long way to improving an organisation’s talent retention.
Stay ahead in the race for talent
The move towards a more inclusive workforce is far from reality across Asia Pacific. For instance, a vast majority of organisations still do not offer diversity & inclusion trainings, as indicated by 82% of respondents.
As such, adopting a more inclusive mindset could give your recruitment and employer branding efforts an edge over your competition – simply due to its existing rarity across Asia.
Inculcating an inclusive mindset is one thing, sustaining it is quite another. With the younger generation of workers placing greater importance on working with people from different backgrounds and abilities, those organisations that can sustain this inclusive mindset within will stay ahead of the increasingly intense race for talent.
Today’s transformation will only accelerate into the future workforce. Organisations need to start evolving their HR and recruitment practices now if they are to meet the needs of today’s transforming workforce.
For more on Promoting an Inclusive Workforce, check out our 2019 Q2 APAC Workforce Insights here.