Final answer:
An HR professional can make a strong case for diversity and inclusion by linking it to the company’s core goals, showing how it creates competitive advantages, and demonstrating its cost-effectiveness. Reducing biases and fostering diverse teams are essential components of the strategy.
Step-by-step explanation:
An HR professional can make a strong business case for incorporating a diversity and inclusion strategy in an organization by doing three key things:
- Linking the strategy directly to the organization’s mission, vision, and business objectives. Diversity and inclusion should align with the overall goals of the company and demonstrate how they contribute to success.
- Connecting individual components of the diversity strategy to specific competitive advantages. For instance, diverse teams may bring a wider array of perspectives, leading to increased innovation and problem-solving capabilities.
- Demonstrating the strategy's cost-effectiveness both in the short term and long range. By presenting data and projections, an HR professional can show how diversity and inclusion efforts can lead to greater market share, access to a wider talent pool, and better employee productivity.
Further, highlighting how professionalizing HR functions may reduce biases in hiring processes, as evidenced by research showing discrimination in hiring based on ethnicity, can strengthen the case for diversity. Diverse hiring practices can help tap into the best and brightest talent pool, facilitating a culture of growth and innovation that outperforms homogeneous groups.