Hiring a diverse workforce has many benefits, but BAME inclusion has some particular advantages.
BAME is an acronym for ‘Black, Asian and minority ethnic’. It is a term that encompasses millions of people across the U.K.
BAME people often experience discrimination, bias, and exclusion in many spheres of their life. An important aspect of that is work-based discrimination. Many people in the BAME community lose out on jobs because of employer prejudice and bias. They also go on to experience discrimination while they are in employment too.
At Aspiring to Include, we want to help change this phenomenon. We want to help BAME people be included at work and in recruitment processes that lead to work. To help do so, on this page we are going to demonstrate to employers the potential benefits in store of adequate BAME inclusion.
We know that hiring people from the BAME community has a lot of positive potential for your business, and we are going to share that information with you.
Representing Your Consumer
As mentioned, ethnic minorities are making up an increasing number of the workforce and, in turn, U.K. consumers. This means that you have to tailor both your product or service to them as both a customer and a client.
An inclusive work environment that understands the different perspectives, challenges, and interests of your various customer or client groups is essential to beating your competitors. However, this is exceptionally difficult if your workforce is largely homogenous, such that it does not represent the U.K. workforce on the whole by not including various different protected characteristics. In short, if your workplace is inclusive on the inside, you cannot act inclusively on the outside.
When you have diverse voices within your company, you can make decisions based on these voices. You can take BAME opinions and perspectives into account and use them to be a relevant and contemporary business.
Expanding Your Talent Pool
With an increasing number of individuals in the U.K. being in the BAME demographic, you can’t afford to exclude them as potential hires. Not only that, but one report found that if BAME individuals were no longer underemployed in the UK, there would be a 1.3% increase in GDP.
As such, becoming inclusive of the growing BAME community will only strengthen your performance in the marketplace and help you compete against your competitors. With more skilled and valuable team members, your company can only go from strength to strength.
Furthermore, the younger generations of employees, known as Millennials and Generation Z, find working in a diverse and inclusive company significantly more important than older generations. Therefore, you are not only excluding members of the BAME community by not being inclusive but also some of the younger population of the UK.
Being diverse is more attractive to everyone viewing your company. Whether that is to apply for a role themselves or to conduct business.
Developing Inclusivity
To thoroughly tackle the issues facing a company’s inclusivity culture, there needs to be a deep understanding from within. You can’t expect everyone to inherently understand every different identity or social group’s perspectives, challenges, and experiences.
Instead, to develop a genuinely equal, diverse, and inclusive company culture, you need a diverse workforce that includes several people from the protected characteristics. Without their insight, you won’t be able to spot unconscious bias or the use of exclusionary language in the workplace. As we said before, diverse voices in your company breed diverse decisions and actions. An exclusive workforce leads to exclusive decisions and actions. Which is not what we want.
Not only will BAME members of staff’s experiences and perspectives be essential to developing a robust company inclusivity program, but also to developing a continuously inclusive culture. When you hire new people, having ambassadors and mentors from the BAME community will both help to welcome new BAME hires and also explain the reasons behind your company program. This develops a cycle of inclusivity that can continue for years to come.
Being Socially Responsible
Every year a company’s brand is defined to a greater extent by its social responsibility. The era of ethical capitalism is approaching and if your company doesn’t get up to speed, it may be left behind.
As such, taking these steps to improve the company culture will not only increase the happiness and productivity of your workforce but be an advert for your product and services. Research suggests that consumers are more likely to buy from a company they believe to be socially responsible.
Hiring and promoting BAME individuals not only demonstrates your commitment to inclusive company culture to your employees, but also to the average U.K. consumer. If you promote yourself with out-of-date attitudes and practices, customers will think that you are out of date too.
It pays to be good, fair, and respectful in this day and age. And isn’t that a wonderful thing?
How We Can Help at Aspiring to Include
At Aspiring to Include, we can help employers with their journey into inclusivity. We have tools and resources available to help you build your business’s messaging and image into one that is equal, diverse, and inclusive. We can help screen your job adverts for exclusive language, we can help you build an inclusive public image with articles and social media posts, and we can help you directly connect with a diverse talent network.
With our help, you can post jobs on our inclusive job board and connect with thousands of diverse job seekers across the U.K.
Now that you have read about the benefits of doing so, why wait?
