JTL - Delivering Skills For Business

THE BENEFITS OF A DIVERSE WORKFORCE

In today's society businesses are becoming more and more aware of the growing need and benefits of employing a diverse mix of people. A more diverse workforce can contribute to a healthy workplace culture. Those who perceive equality and diversity as exclusively a moral imperative or a community objective are missing the larger point. It is a competitive advantage and a great business opportunity.

Many businesses find it helpful to have a workforce that reflects the community they trade in. Attracting applicants from the whole community will provide employers with the widest choice and avoid excluding the best candidate. With the shortage of skilled operators affecting the industry today, adopting an equal opportunities approach will give businesses a greater chance of filling these vacancies.

The construction industry needs to encourage the best people to contribute to improving society and the economy, however, ignoring the skill potential of ethnic minorities and females in the construction field, reduces the pool of recruits on which to draw from. Furthermore, it makes business sense that employers recruit from the whole of the labour force not just 50% of it. By ignoring females and ethnic minorities employers are missing out on untapped potential

Other benefits for having a diverse workforce include:

• Enables electrical contractors to attract a high calibre of candidate from the wider community
• Gives consistency and fairness in the recruitment process ensures the best person for the job is recruited
• Allows companies to become an 'Employer Choice'
• Improves employee's morale and motivation
• Enables companies to better reflect their customer base
• Enhances performance and productivity
• It meets the changing values of society

Tips for recruiting a more diverse workforce:

• Check your job descriptions do not exclude anyone from applying because of race religion or gender
• Avoid indirectly discriminating by recruitment through the grapevine
• Develop equal opportunities or fair treatment policy and publicise it.
• Don't just embrace diversity for it's own sake - make full use of the varied skills a diverse workforce offers.

Here are a couple of companies who support equality and diversity and explain the business benefits:

Alan Crozier
"From my experience, applications from women and ethnic minority groups are few and far between. My view is that most women perceive the construction industry to be a male orientated environment. I do not think principal contractors help in the employment of women because of their approach to the working environment and overcome these barriers to allow all sections of community to contribute effectively to the success of the industry"

Caroline Hackney (L J Monks)
"L J Monks Equality and Diversity Policy plays a vital role in the recruitment of staff and has clearly assisted with making objective decisions in the selection process. A recent example of this was the recruitment of Leanne Bateman (L J Monks' first female electrical apprentice). L J Monks fully supports any move that aims to recruit more women into building services engineering sector and welcomes the 'Breaking the Mould' project."