How to Make Your Startup Team More Diverse

It might be human nature to gravitate toward like-minded people. Still, it’s best to save that level of comfort for parties instead of the business world. After all, as a McKinsey report shows, the most successful leadership teams tend to be populated by diverse players.

Linking diversity to profitability
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has noted that whites hold 83.3 percent of tech sector C-suite positions. Imagine a business of all sales reps or all technical gurus. The first would have no product to sell; the second would need someone to sell its product. If your workplace is lagging in terms of diversity, you can start today to make lasting changes.

1. Change your job ads and the candidate-screening process.
Entrepreneurs need to keep diversity in mind when hiring, even if they can only afford a few employees. Study shows that masculine adjectives, like “competitive” and “determined,” deter women from applying for jobs. Use the Gender Decoder for Job Ads to comb your job postings and change the language if necessary.

2. Stop driving away diverse applicants.
Diversity of gender, ethnicity, and viewpoint checks unconscious bias on the part of interviewers. By asking interviewees the same basic questions, you’ll be fairer to them and stay focused on assessing whether they have the attributes needed to do the job. Unstructured interviews open the door to in-group favoritism and heighten your chances of basing your hiring decision on irrelevant details.

3. Put diversity front and center.
Diversity shouldn’t be treated like a taboo subject. Focus on making it normal to talk internally and externally about what diversity means for your company. Take a cue from Merck and host a diversity and inclusion experience month. Your goal isn’t to hide a lack of diversity but to bring diverse individuals into the fold.

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Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/how-to-make-your-startup-team-more-diverse/326689