In addition to the undeniable benefits in the work environment, diversity positively impacts the company: innovation and profitability. Diverse talent is the principal value of a team in a cutting-edge business model.
“Teams with gender diversity make better business decisions 73% of the time, while teams with geographic and age diversity do so 87% of the time.” This is in the Bain & Company Report, which invites us to think about the concrete benefits of plurality in organizations.
Fernando Matzkin, Globant’s Chief Business Officer in North America, underlines that nowadays, diversity is what gives value to a workgroup: “I think the concept of a team has changed over time. Years ago, the team concept was multidisciplinary and high-performance. Today, what differentiates a team is the power of the diversity it contains. In other words, this has to do with incorporating different cultures, ways of seeing the world and, consequently, various ways of solving a problem”.
Healthy interaction is created in diverse teams, leading to an environment of good results and innovation.
Advantages for companies working with diverse talents include a cutting-edge business model, above-average profitability, and a favorable work environment. Furthermore, from an organization’s diversity point of view, the most crucial factor that comes into play is the ability to generate innovative, disruptive ideas that make a difference. The latter is the number one goal at Globant, which was born to generate non-traditional digital experiences. In addition, the speed of growth of the company – which hires 1,500 people per month – facilitates the formation of diverse, multi-localized teams. This is why “Globant’s vision has innovation at the center of its culture to transform how humans interact with technology. This is key because the ability to innovate does not exist if a team is not diverse in every way: in terms of gender, nationality, culture, and thinking, to name a few”, emphasizes Matzkin.
The case of Smile Direct Club in the United States is a good example: it offers dental health services that include dental aligners made with 3D printers, which are cheaper. For this client, a team of 200 people from Argentina, Colombia, and Eastern Europe was assembled in three months. The team’s speed is directly related to the magnitude of the impact and its power of transformation. Each stage of the process – for example, product development and orientation – was affected by the cultural diversity of its participants. The key is that Globant aims to do something different and innovative in all stages without ever emulating the competition. It is a powerhouse of disruptive ideas.
Diversity has infinite nuances, and the more you contemplate, the better. For example, Mercedes Mac Pherson, Chief People Officer EMEA of Globant, proposes resources to leave heteronormalcy behind in the way we communicate and accompany cultural change, being mindful of language in social and work ties. The organization offers training to reduce unconscious biases. The goal is to create work environments that provide psychological safety.
Globant also has a community framework through which people can summon themselves according to interests or a common denominator. Those same people are the ones who could give talks on these issues that bring together communities within the company. “There must be an ongoing conversation between the community and the company,” Mac Pherson. Along the same lines, she emphasizes that diversity is formed by institutions: family, school, and workspace. And she highlights the enormous transversality without segmentation that exists in the company’s programs, making it more diverse and capable of generating diversity in business.
Diversity management attracts different perspectives, personalities, and realities, male and female employees who contribute to a company’s competitive advantages. For Trent Henry, Global Vice Chair of Talent at Ernst & Young, diversity is linked to a particular type of leadership. Henry proposes to build an organizational culture in which all members can feel welcome and, therefore, achieve high performance since now people choose to join organizations that have a purpose: an organizational culture that celebrates differences and encourages each person to express themselves authentically at work which, in turn, will allow a greater economic return. Henry highlights this relationship between diversity in a company and better financial performance.
When a leader understands that each person has something distinctive to contribute, first and second-line teams are nurtured by a diversity of visions, resulting in an excellent platform for creativity and innovation in organizations, people from different contexts, crossed by mixed realities, bring unique talents, experiences, and abilities that are enhanced in interaction with the team. What makes everyone unique is what also opens up new dynamics in companies.
