How to Expand your Business Without Increasing Costs

The business has realized that diversity can be the key factor to being successful in the modern globalized economy. Having a diverse team of employees will help your company grow in skills and knowledge without expanding its payroll. Among other things, a more diverse business can speak to potential customers from different social background, race, religion. With more people being able to relate to the brand the business will grow.

In addition, recruiting from a diverse pool of candidates will give the business access to more qualified and more efficient employees. Over time, the business will find that having a diverse and inclusive workforce lowers the employee turnover costs.

In order to embrace the role of diversity, a business needs to understand it properly and to know how to form and sustain a diverse team. Knowing how to deliver through diversity is of paramount importance as this is one of the leading workplace trends for 2018 according to Forbes.

Why diversity matters?

We all know that diversity matters from a purely humanistic point of view. For many years we do talk about equality and inclusion and the importance of that.

It is worth noting that diversity matters from a financial perspective as well and can be quite beneficial for the business. Teams comprised of diverse employees deliver better results and lead to an increase in the company revenue. Diversity brings a competitive advantage to a company without increasing its costs. Having a team of employees who have different ideas, talents, and knowledge as a result of their age, sex or cultural background can help the company better understand its customers. The business benefits from the broader view of its team members and having diverse employees at all levels of the company can increase both employee retention and customer satisfaction.

It is not easy to achieve diversity, however, taking into account the higher returns it will bring to the business, it is surely a good idea to start investing in it. The sooner you start, the sooner you will be able to boost with greater result without incurring additional costs.

Main benefits of having a diverse team

group holding message bubbles over their heads and smiling

When we speak about diversity, we usually envisage people of different age, sex, nationality, and background. When we talk about diversity at the workplace, however, it is not only necessary to aim for the perfect ratio of male and female workers but to look a bit further at the personality of the person who will be joining the team. Think how their specific education, life experience or cultural background will add to the overall knowledge of the company. In order to foster creativity and have a significant range of ideas and solutions, it is worth to consider how important diversity is for the growth of your business. Some of the main benefits of employing a diverse workforce for your company include:

A better understanding of customers’ needs

Hiring people from different demographic groups means that you have an employee who will easier understand the needs of a customer from the respective demographic group. In some cases, it may even be a matter of the way the person speaks or the terms they use that can attract or repel a potential customer.

If you think about services such as WritingsGuru and Writemyessaytoday it can be easy to see how they can benefit from a diverse team. Having writers with different experience, education and cultural background guarantees a better understanding of the demands of the different customers and hence providing a better service possibly even at a lower cost.

Better performance

Harvard Business Review came to the conclusion that cognitively diverse teams solve problems much faster. As a result, they are also able to perform better. If the employees fell that their company supports diversity the feel included and more engaged. The overall success of the company becomes their own mission and they are more willing to invest their best in order to achieve a given result.

Higher creativity and innovation

In case the team is homogeneous it is likely that all people will come up with similar solutions to a given problem or start lacking ideas at a certain point. Having employees with diverse background, education, and life experience means that they have a broader knowledge of the world and are more likely to come up with unique and innovative ideas. The problem is that in case the team is not truly diverse, a different employee will be afraid to stand out and rather agree with the rest instead of proposing a different solution.

Better positioning of your brand

As public awareness of diversity in the workplace is growing, more and more people pay attention to the policy of the company towards different employees prior to accepting a job with them. If you establish your brand as one focusing on diversity, it will be easier to attract and retain talent. A diverse employee team will attract a diverse pool of customers. Thus, you will also have a better marketing position that will entail growth in your profits.

It can be concluded that diversity at the workplace entails growth not only for the specific business but also for the overall economy of the country. Including women, minority representatives or disabled people in the workforce means greater human capital.

According to a McKinsey&Company report “in the United States, there is a linear relationship between racial and ethnic diversity and better financial performance: for every 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior executive team, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) rise 0.8 percent”. We can clearly state that there are economic benefits for a company that invests in diversity in the workplace.

Grow your business, not your payroll: How to achieve this goal?

Business growth does not necessarily have to involve the actual growth of the company in size. Quite often, it is even necessary to keep a small team of skilled and dedicated employees who would easily meet your corporate needs rather than expand the numbers with unnecessary positions. You need to work smart in order to grow your profits. This can be achieved by investing in the personnel you already have, or you are about to hire, especially by ensuring that you meet the essential payroll system requirements for effective payroll management. Furthermore, there are three main ways to have a great company that can bring better results:

Strategic hiring

Strategic hiring can help any business improve its potential and deliver better results without having to increase the number of employees it has. To hire strategically means to think of the needs your company will have tomorrow and not only in the present moment. It entails a diversified approach to hiring – consulting different experts that can help you determine the employees you need for a certain position. One of the main elements of strategic hiring is nurturing your staff to stay and identifying the potential of your employees.

Also, their engagement can be easily tracked by conducting surveys. You can use surveys to measure employee job satisfaction and how much they value their roles. Recognizing talent and helping your team members to use and expand it, will result in your company having more diverse employees without increasing their number.

A great example can be the service of custom writing. If a company such as Handmade writings uses the full potential of its writers it can meet the growing demand for its services. If you are an experienced expert in history, it doesn’t mean that you do not have diverse knowledge in English literature or Geography, for example. Revealing all of their skills and knowledge can be beneficial both for the company and the employees. Hence, it is important for the employer to nurture talent in the company and to retain and promote their best employees.

Proper training

If you want your business to move forward, you need to invest in the proper training of your employees. Make sure to provide them with all the necessary skills needed to perform the tasks they are given. It is necessary to teach them how to ask customers in order to get feedback, however, it is also essential to provide them with training regarding the help desk software that you have chosen for your company. Keep in mind that you have to train a diverse team of employees, as hopefully you have exactly that kind of employees. In order to have great results, make sure to localize the training that you provide, so that it is understandable by everyone. Include fun elements such as games and give feedback.

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Improved website

The website of your company is the representation of your business in the online world. Do not underestimate its importance. Its attractiveness will also facilitate your employees in their communication with the customers. There are several studies that reveal how important color is for the acceptance of your brand. They focus on the fact that a customer has about 90 seconds to make a decision about a product or a brand, so you need to make sure to grab their attention. Use the best of your design team to make a website that attracts – you can include animation or other assets that can help you stand out from the others.

Make sure to pay attention to the functionality of the site as well. Live chat is popular and growing and most customers expect to see a button allowing them to connect instantly with a representative, who can answer all their questions. There are many reasons why live chat is important for your business website, so do not take too long prior to offering this option.

Great customer service starts today. Make sure to use the very best of the tools offered on the market in order to guarantee that your communication with your clients is at the high level you want it to be. Sign up for a LiveAgent trial – it is for free – and experience the amazing live chat functionality it offers. Having the right tools and software combined with the diverse knowledge and skills of your team, your business will be able to grow much easier and quicker.

Diversity as part of the leading workforce trends

Dan Schawbel is known for his forecasts of the 10 leading workforce trends that are to rule the following year. The trends he presents are not mere predictions but are based on substantive research and talks with executives and workers in different industries. They aim to help the business get ready for the following year and avoid unpleasant surprises.

It is no wonder that a growing focus on diversity is one of the trends identified in his forecast. While discussions on the importance of diversity have been going on for years, now they are reaching its peak since more and more companies realize its practical effects on their business. A heterogeneous employee base turns out to be much more beneficial for corporate growth. Hence more and more companies do support all types of diversity in gender, age, race.

Another aspect of diversity that is also welcomed by the business today is the opportunity for the employees to have various education and qualification based on various learning courses, certifications, and credentials. Access to knowledge is much easier through online courses provided for free or against payment by various organizations. Simply having a LinkedIn profile gives you access to LinkedIn Learning and the possibility to build-up your qualification. Promoting ongoing learning is an excellent option for a company to diversify its team in terms of knowledge and skills.

The overall conclusion for the modern business should be to actually embrace diversity and try to introduce it as an integral part of their policy-making process. A diverse labor force can easily cope with diverse market conditions and clients with various demands. For a business to be able to expand it is necessary to speak the language of their customers and not only literally to be able to offer customer support in several languages. It is vital to understand the cultural differences of the people you are dealing with and the best way to achieve it is by choosing wisely your employees. Make sure that there is diversity at all levels of your company – do not focus only on employing different agents for your call center, for example, but also on promoting different people to leadership and managerial position. Only be ensuring actual diversity of your workforce, you will be able to grow without constantly increasing your costs.

Guest Post Author

Donna Moores

Donna Moores is a successful blogger and CMO at Handmade Writings. She has gained an outstanding marketing experience within the biggest industries and businesses, which she pleasantly shares with the readers.

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Daniel Pison

Daniel is responsible for the marketing and communication strategy at LiveAgent. He is a member of the inner product circle and company topmanagement. During his previous professional career, he held various managerial positions in the field of marketing and client communication. Daniel is one of the experts on AI and its integration into the customer service environment.