As you search for the right talent to hire for your organization, it is smart to focus on diversity. Good construction leadership searches out a wide talent pool, as they recognize that having a diverse range of people produces an equally diverse range of ideas and perspectives.
Types of Diversity in Your Organization
When talking about diversity in an organization, there are many types we can talk about. These can include age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and gender. These are what most people think of when they imagine diversity.
Savvy construction leadership, however, realizes that this is not the only type of diversity. You can also have diversity in the form of service veterans, employees with foreign work experience, or those who have a unique career path, areas of study, or industry backgrounds.
How Diversity Boosts Innovation
The connection between diversity and innovation comes down to the unique viewpoints that a diverse team brings to the table. During any conversation, there are likely to be multiple opinions due to the varying backgrounds of each employee. This gets people used to sharing ideas instead of just accepting what the first person says.
When combined with inclusivity, this encourages your team to share their ideas. At the least, this means that great innovations are not stuck in an employee’s head. Additionally, the knowledge that they can share ideas may even lead to your team thinking or innovating so they can feel like they contribute to the team. Essentially, by encouraging inclusivity, you encourage innovation and creativity.
There are other benefits of the way that diverse teams accustom themselves to hearing new ideas. This makes them more likely to pay attention to industry innovations and unmet market needs that your business can harness.
Best Practices to Use Diversity to Boost Innovation
Simply focusing your construction recruiting efforts on hiring a diverse team is not enough to harness the innovation that comes with diversity. You need to make sure that the diversity extends to perspectives. You also must ensure that the culture is inclusive, encouraging that diversity. On top of that, you must have an innovation framework that encourages your team to innovate and be creative.
What Diversity Looks Like in Construction Careers
Some aspects of diversity are universal. For example, regardless of the industry, you want to find people who have varied upbringings or are from various cultures. There are also parts of a diverse perspective unique to each industry.
In construction, diverse perspectives can include people who are familiar with new technology. It can include those who are familiar with new market segments and their likely construction needs. Or it can be those who know about new delivery methodologies.
How to Encourage Diverse Perspectives in Your Organization
To encourage diverse perspectives, don’t focus all of your construction recruiting efforts on one type of employee. Look for people who attended different college programs or people who don’t have the standard construction background.
You can also encourage your existing employees to develop diverse perspectives. Do this by exposing them to new training. Provide them with new experiences.
How can we help you?
Searching for an opportunity in the construction industry? Contact The Birmingham Group’s team of seasoned commercial construction recruiters today to discuss your career path or browse our open positions.
Are you a hiring authority in need of construction talent? Submit a search request today.
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