Our society has become diversity fatigued over time with its ongoing attempts to drive equality based on demographics—ethnicity, gender, and personal preferences. Despite incremental progress, “diversity” in the workplace still stirs a range of emotions from empowerment to resentment. Cole Scott Group offers companies an opportunity to view the face of diversity objectively by focusing on employees’ cognitive strengths and smart business practices.
Traditional diversity will naturally improve, because the changing demographics of available workforce creates an environment where companies have no choice but to continue the evolution of hiring more minorities over time. Consider gender inequalities, for example. In 1959, only 37% of college graduates were women. By 2017, however, women made up over 50% of college graduates. By the numbers alone, there is a greater proportion of female college graduates available for hire than ever before in history.
The same is true for the availability of other minorities. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans are more racially and ethnically diverse than in the past, and the U.S. is projected to be even more diverse in the coming decades. By 2055, the U.S. will not have a single racial or ethnic majority. While inclusion will continue to evolve naturally over time, companies need to get ahead of it and make it work for them as an engine to their success.
We have an opportunity to revolutionize the workplace by properly aligning an employee’s strengths with his or her employer’s strategy. Cole Scott Group is creating a global platform for Strategic Diversity now because companies need new, objective, and demographic-neutral solutions. As in living ecological systems, companies should manage diversity in the sense that greater variety improves the probability of survival and success over time.
Businesses that have an over-concentrated focus become vulnerable, so they have a strong opportunity now to make a powerful culture change by improving their diversity. Our strategic diversity platform mimics natural selection. Cole Scott Group’s solutions enable companies to pinpoint what is working and what is not, identify employees who have more to offer than is readily apparent, and provide development methods to boost success for employees and their employers.
Companies now have the opportunity to embrace new science and tools in cognitive diversity. According to the Harvard Business Review, these tools, like the Human Insights’ AEM Cube, make for smart business process. They shift focus from one’s looks to his thinking, reinforcing that it’s what’s inside that really counts (and what benefits business most). A person’s cognitive strengths are color and gender blind. Strategic Diversity analysis, planning and implementation can help businesses continue to improve traditional programs while adding an objective lens of cognitive diversity to create a gender, color, and preference-neutral workforce. And all employees are afforded the true equality.
Companies need both traditional, demographic-based diversity and progressive, cognitive-based diversity solutions. We call this hybrid approach “Strategic Diversity” because it acknowledges the traditional and leads companies forward with refined tools that align corporate strategy with individual strengths to improve innovation, profits and empowerment.