Embracing Diversity: Bringing Advantages of Different Cultures to the Workplace

WHEN I GREW UP IN New York City, my family lived in the Bronx, among Chinese, Koreans, Italians, African-Americans and Polish neighbors. My group of best friends expanded well beyond my own Latino culture.

I remember the flavor of that neighborhood and different smells in the air. We had a true melting pot with all types of people from many different races. In a word, we had diversity. In New York City, it was something that was embraced. And to a pre-teen Latino growing up in the Bronx, it was a good experience.

As the new president of the Indiana Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, I've been thinking about diversity in our state's business community. How well do we embrace diversity in the workplace today?

Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between people in a work environment. This may sound simple, but diversity includes race, gender, ethnic background, age, different styles, time in service, education, abilities and disabilities and yes, sometimes even personalities.

So how do you deal with so many differences in the workplace?

The beauty of having a diverse workplace is that you can have many different types of people all working on the common good for the company. Employees from diverse backgrounds bring different talents and experiences that can foster new ideas, address changing markets and customer demands and add some skills that were not there before.

Companies that encourage diversity in the workplace also inspire their employees to perform at their highest ability. Strategies can be devised to have employees work more productively which means a higher return on investment for employers.

Usually when one refers to "diversity" people think of race or language challenges.

I am reminded of that TV commercial where a businessman goes to Japan and does not get the memo on how to pronounce his customer's name and he also attempts to shake his hand instead of the traditional bowing. If a business wants to work with certain sectors of the community, they should be versed not only in the language but also the cultural differences of that population.

Having diverse employees helps to bring perspective to an employer; not only with language barriers but also with cultural awareness of behaviors and societal differences.

I've found that having a broad range of ages in a business also serves a company well. Through the generations, things change, times change and people change. Business needs to change with those times. Having the advice of these diverse employees along a span of experiences, knowledge in the specific target market and age groups serves a company well.

Embracing diversity in the workplace does not mean that there will be continual bliss. There are always challenges. Issues arise because, even in the 21st century, we don't fully understand each other. Some may resist change that comes with diversity.

Once again, I'm taken back to that time in the Bronx where although we may not have spoken each other's languages or known each other's cultures, we participated in a sociological experiment that can only be described as diversity

In Indiana's business community today, we should also embrace such differences and who knows, at the end of the day, we will all speak the same language of business, return on investment and profitability. If that is our common goal, then diversity in our workplace is a valuable tool.

Wilson "Wil" Reyes is president and CEO of the Indiana State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce