Inclusivity—The Catalyst for Innovation

Published on April 8, 2016 |

When companies think about shifting culture, they typically focus on streamlining processes, empowering employees, and creating a collaborative workplace in order to fuel increased innovation, productivity, and profits. Surprisingly, inclusivity is often a key catalyst in this equation. 

For some time now, the business world has embraced the idea that intelligence, creativity, and talent isn’t exclusive to any particular race, gender, age, or sexual orientation. Now that workplace diversity has been proven to drive both innovative thinking and culturally-relevant product development, establishing inclusivity as a significant element of company culture must be a core strategy of any company. 

By fostering its employees’ unique individual qualities and thought processes, a company can collectively develop a global mind-set and cultural fluency. Moreover, by investing in inclusivity training for team leaders, it can help them to successfully manage and navigate the wide array of ideas, beliefs, and subcultures that an inclusive workplace brings. 

Where to go from here? 
While inclusivity invites a wide range of beliefs into the cultural environment of an office—it is key to focus on the importance of brand consistency within the company’s values. This is where an effective internal communications strategy comes into play.

Written to reinforce how a company lives out its values both internally and in the marketplace, such vision can serve to inspire employees in their work as well as articulate the brand value to clients. At the same time, it can also be an effective tool in recruiting the right talent, helping to identify those prospects who possess the attitudes and behaviors needed to succeed within your company—ensuring that they’re a solid fit with the culture that you’re seeking to create.