Need to Ramp Up Innovation? Hire a Diverse Workforce

https://talentculture.com/need-to-ramp-up-innovation-hire-a-diverse-workforce/

Do you need to ramp up company innovation? Need to boost ingenuity? According to research, the solution is simple: Hire a diverse workforce.

In a study, researchers at North Carolina State’s Poole College of Management considered this question: Do companies that foster diversity perform better in developing innovative products and services? Based on data from the 3,000 largest publicly traded companies in the U.S., the answer was clear: “The short answer is that they do,” says Richard Warr, co-author of a paper on the study. “The take-home message here is that a business which relies on innovation will benefit significantly from supporting diversity within its organization. It’s really that simple.”

The N.C. State study isn’t alone in its findings. A few years back the Center for Talent Innovation (CTI), a global talent think tank, published a national survey on Innovation, Diversity, and Market Growth. CTI found that when leaders embody diversity — and an organization’s culture embraces diversity — a “speak-up culture” emerges that harnesses point-of-pain insights to meet the needs of underserved demographics. And it’s this culture that exerts a measurable impact on the bottom line.