Understanding and Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace
At First Hospitality Group, we work hard to continuously nurture and elevate a diverse team. We take an active approach to creating a culture that embraces and celebrates individuals of all backgrounds, skillsets, and walks of life because we have seen firsthand the positive influence and power of diversity. In today’s rapidly changing workforce, business as usual just isn’t going to cut it. When you create a workplace climate where employees can feel heard—and where a diverse mix of cultural, personal, and professional perspectives are voiced, valued, and validated—morale goes up.
Understanding and accommodating diversity in the workplace begins with the ability to appreciate and address a wide range of priorities and perspectives. At a time when the industry and the nation are becoming younger and more diverse, embracing and empowering a younger and more diverse workforce is essential. Greater diversity in the form of your employee’s different personal and professional backgrounds inevitably leads to new ideas, creative solutions, and inspired innovations. What’s exciting here is that diversity isn’t static: it builds on itself. Employees learn from each other, and find new and effective ways to approach problem solving.
We have seen the benefits of new ideas and perspectives, and we are implementing programs and practices designed to bring in the youth and the diversity where those ideas and perspectives reside. Just to be clear, this movement isn’t a “what if” or a “one day” – it’s already underway. A more diverse workplace culture tends to be more flexible and adaptable, exhibit higher morale, and conceive and convey a wider range of fresh ideas and new perspectives. In a marketplace that is only getting younger and growing more competitive with each passing day, these aren’t small benefits: they are potentially defining competitive advantages.
The goal should be to not just tolerate diversity, but embrace it, enthusiastically and unequivocally. Not out of some sense of obligation, but because new ideas and experiences have real value. Inclusion leads to optimism. Diversity leads to curiosity. And collaboration is supercharged when different parties feel both valued and valuable.
