Four Benefits of a Diverse Workforce for Healthcare Organizations
From improved associate engagement to better patient satisfaction and outcomes, having a diverse healthcare workforce can provide a huge advantage. Cultivating and including a diverse healthcare staff gives healthcare organizations access to more perspectives, sparks creativity, improves productivity, and enhances organizations' ability to solve complex problems.
Diversity Creates a Variety of Perspectives
One of the most significant benefits of having a diverse workforce is gaining access to different perspectives. Bringing together associates of diverse experiences, cultures, and backgrounds improves organizations' ability to ideate, problem-solve and empathize with patients. Patient populations are not homogeneous. Each patient is different and may come from various backgrounds, including language barriers, so it's essential to have a diverse healthcare staff that can be relatable to every patient. Local healthcare teams should reflect the diversity of the patient population it serves to increase their ability to build a genuine connection with their patients and improve care.
Diverse Perspectives Spark Creativity
When most healthcare staff come from different socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic, and educational backgrounds, they'll likely bring different or unique solutions; homogeneity limits innovation. Creative thinking and collaboration from people with different perspectives can impact the healthcare organization overall, from innovation to creating new ideas on how to improve patient care. One way healthcare organizations committed to creativity and innovation can cultivate inclusion within existing staff is through retention and training and development programs . To continue fostering diversity in the future, explore healthcare recruitment strategies designed to help attract and hire diverse candidates.
Diversity and Inclusion Make Associates Feel Accepted
Creating a work environment where hospital staff see a representation of a variety of cultures and backgrounds will allow them to feel like they belong, are valued, and feel a sense of connectedness. In workplaces that are not diverse associates may fear being rejected — for their background, the ideas they voice, and who they are. It's important for associates to feel accepted because they are more likely to speak up and share their ideas, again improving productivity and innovation in the workplace. Diversity, coupled with a sense of belonging, can help break down barriers and reduce the fear staff may have of being rejected.
Better Decision and Faster Problem Solving
Including different people and perspectives leads to a more informed decision-making process. Diversity helps reduce blind spots and can reduce the time it takes to come to a decision. Associates from diverse backgrounds bring a variety of viewpoints and experiences to group discussions; teams can assess their options quicker and land on a decision together in less time.
Why Analyze Workforce Perception of Diversity?
While healthcare organizations that perform well undoubtedly embrace diversity as a key to their workforce engagement strategy, tracking meaningful metrics is essential when defining goals and designing strategies for improvement. Analyzing employees' perceptions of diversity in the workplace creates accountability. Utilizing the insight from employees perception of diversity can indicate the areas of improvement within the workplace, and maintaining a diverse healthcare staff will ultimately provide great benefits to healthcare organizations.
