No doubt, pandemic forced the global workforce to try on working from home arrangement. Certainly, this could be a very new experience for many companies and individuals. With such experience, 69% of engineering and infrastructure workforce reports wanting to embrace the working from home model according to a recent poll by our parent company,
Phaidon International. While workforce prefers the working-from-home model, this actually opens up the door for diversity & inclusion for companies.
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Opening Doors for Diversity & Inclusion
Flexible work arrangement opens the door for diversity & inclusion.
1. Gender Diversity
According to the ILO report, women do 4 times more unpaid care work than men in Asia and the Pacific. The traditional, rigid concept of work as something done only in an office forces women to choose between their caring commitments and their careers. In short, working from home allows working women to juggle between career and family easily. For example, the time that has saved from travelling to work can easily exchange for doing 2 rounds of laundries. Working from home
opens up the door for working moms and wives.
2. Inclusion of Disabilities
With an estimated 650 million people with disabilities in Asia, promoting the social inclusion and labour participation of people with disabilities is an issue that governments are rightly concerned about. When embracing remote work, individuals can have their own specific needs catered to without feeling they are being stigmatised. In conclusion, more disabilities individuals can be easier to adapt and take up the opportunity.
3. Contingent Workers
There is a common perception that contingent workers are disposable and separate from the organizations' core. Normalizing remote working and digital communication as a core feature of workplace dynamics will help overcome this. In other words, this will help organizations more effectively tap into these skills by maintaining better relationships.
Diversity & Inclusion is Not an Overnight Fix
Increasing diversity is not an overnight fix: while remote and flexible work will help open doors and start conversations, this is no silver bullet and diversity must be an ongoing process of cultural self-examination. Organizations that want to make real progress moving forward should continually consider three factors:
Reshaping culture
Transparency and hierarchy
Self-disruption
Download our full report for more details.
Diversity & Inclusion Hiring Strategy
Diversity & inclusion is often cited as a top priority for business leaders; that is to say, creating a work environment that
demonstrates, respects, and values differences boost innovation and the bottom line. However, converting intent into action and, ultimately, results can be challenging. Selby Jennings team has been assisting HR managers on deploying
diversity & inclusion hiring strategy. We are happy to share more examples.
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