Employer Branding — Part 4:
Taking a Chance on Diversity

Nowa­days, compa­nies in the construc­tion and real estate sector, too, need to be up-to-date in order to be success­ful on the job market. For many exec­u­tives, commit­ting to diver­si­ty is still one of the most deli­cate aspects of this. There are solu­tions. In our previ­ous Valdivia Expert Tip (Employ­er Brand­ing 3: The Glow of Appre­ci­a­tion — Valdivia (valdivia-consulting.com), we present­ed the foun­da­tions: gener­al appre­ci­a­tion. In this issue, we want to show ways in which compa­nies can advance and utilise diver­si­ty with­out having to rein­vent themselves.

Opti­mum Perfor­mance from Every­body – More Resilience for the Whole Organisation

Prac­ticed diver­si­ty makes a compa­ny more produc­tive, more inno­v­a­tive, and resilient. Every­body prof­its from diverse expe­ri­ences and perspec­tives – as long as every­body treats each other open­ly. Howev­er, there is more to diver­si­ty than listen­ing to the ideas of the colleague from Syria, the women around the table, or the person in a wheel­chair during a team meet­ing. Diver­si­ty is, if you like, the flip side of the coin of non-discrim­i­na­tion: It’s not about lump­ing every­one togeth­er, but much more it is about support­ing people as best fits their specif­ic needs… and, this way, enabling them to perform best. One impor­tant factor in this is soft skills: When, for instance, the digi­tal natives’ joy of play and an old hand’s gut feel­ing comple­ment each other in a produc­tive manner, expect more and better results compared to running a project by the book.

6 Tips for Start­ing Diversity

• Prac­ticed diver­si­ty starts with small things – and with prac­ti­cal things: by mixing teams or project groups from differ­ent depart­ments, for instance. If you are unsure as to whether this will work, an exter­nal train­er can help to kick-start the process, to set up pilots.
• Support exchange between differ­ent age groups, the unex­pe­ri­enced as well as the expe­ri­enced, e.g. with a buddy program. Allo­cate a time and money budget in order to estab­lish a frame­work for genuine exchange that goes beyond concrete tasks.
• Encour­ag­ing train­ing is a good moti­va­tion­al factor for any employ­ee. Should you express­ly mention German lessons in the context, find an elegant way to address your commit­ted migrant co-work­ers.
• Simi­lar­ly, promot­ing corpo­rate health shows all of your staff members that you care and, at the same time and with age-based programs, it demon­strates a posi­tive atti­tude towards older colleagues.
• Sure­ly, all parents will welcome help in arrang­ing child care, but it is also an impor­tant element of promot­ing women. Among the options are time accounts for young parents or corpo­rate day care facil­i­ties. In case your compa­ny is too small for this: Why not contact neigh­bor­ing enter­pris­es and arrange for joint child care?
• An inter­nal diver­si­ty calen­dar has the holi­days of every group repre­sent­ed in the compa­ny – from East­er and Bayram to Christo­pher Street Day – with the respec­tive back­ground info provid­ed. This way, a posi­tive sense of diver­si­ty will grow with the entire staff.

And do have the courage to make diver­si­ty visi­ble: You can do more than just adhere to the legal require­ments of gender neutral­i­ty in your job adver­tise­ments. High­light any programs you offer as described above – just like good acces­si­bil­i­ty for the mobil­i­ty impaired. Use your website and social media to give the floor to people with diverse back­grounds. Even if you start with only a few indi­vid­ual exam­ples: the point is to take a first, unmis­tak­able step!