Diversity drives innovation and competitiveness

Diversity is vital both for companies and for society as a whole. Hurri emphasises that diversity incorporates different perspectives that enrich the work community.

“Diversity helps members of the work community to develop, since they’re surrounded by a variety of perspectives and experiences. This improves work quality and makes it possible to solve more complex problems.”

Diversity can give businesses a competitive edge. Diverse teams are able to come up with more wide-ranging solutions and serve a broader customer base better. Digital services play an increasingly large role in people’s lives, and should therefore serve a diverse range of people. To ensure that services genuinely take account of different needs, it makes sense to have a diverse range of developers.

In Hurri’s view, diversity is particularly important for ICT companies with an international or otherwise wide-ranging customer base. This enables a better understanding of the needs of different markets and cultures.

When it comes to promoting diversity, the ICT sector can lead the way for other sectors. Netlight is an example of a business that has taken significant steps to promote diversity. The company has invested in gender equality and equality in recruitment.

“We promote gender equality and equality in our recruitment processes, for example,” Hurri says. At Netlight, everyone involved in recruitment, including front-line staff, is trained to understand people’s different needs and biases throughout the process.

“Managers need to educate themselves, be curious and prepared to try new things. Human resources departments, in turn, can provide opportunities for training and support in creating structures that accommodate different needs.”

Anderson emphasises that promoting diversity requires dedicated management commitment and awareness.

“The role of management is crucial. If diversity is not decisively put on the management agenda, it won’t translate into action.” In Anderson’s view, once diversity has been truly embraced, the ICT sector can recruit talent from anywhere in the world.

Management and human resources departments can promote diversity in many ways. The first step is raising awareness and training. According to Andersson, a good starting point for promoting diversity is the ability of management to recognise their lack of knowledge and their willingness to learn.

Psychological safety is an integral part of multifaceted activities. The term usually refers to a workplace where everyone can express their opinions, ask questions and make mistakes without fear of being criticised, ridiculed or punished.

Psychological safety is essential for benefitting from diversity to the fullest. It creates an atmosphere where everyone feels accepted and able to be themselves. Psychological safety promotes trust and openness, which fosters collaboration and innovation in the workplace.

An excellent example of a business that invests in psychological safety is the ICT company Wunder. Wunder has a diverse workforce, with offices in several countries and more than 20 languages spoken.

The YouTube channel of the EDIFY-EDU project (which addresses the skills gap of Management education with regards to competencies on equality, diversity, and inclusion) presents Wunder’s psychological safety team, which works according to safe space principles and promotes psychological safety throughout the organisation. The initiative to set up this group came from Wunder employees, and it was adopted by the company’s management.

In addition to promoting psychological safety within its organisation, Wunder also trains its clients on its importance. This shows how committed the company is to creating safe and accepting working environments for its employees and customers alike.

Hurri also emphasises that in a psychologically safe workplace, employees can express their viewpoints and experiences without fear of discrimination or belittlement.

When an organisation’s culture supports different expressions of diversity, employees feel empowered to be themselves. This creates the basis for an innovative and dynamic work community.

In addition to promoting gender equality, Netlight’s diversity policies include creating safe spaces for various minority groups.

“The involvement of men in gender equality efforts, launched seven years ago, has led them to work on and become more aware of these issues,” Hurri says. “This has helped to share the burden of gender equality efforts and raise awareness.”

Promoting diversity in Finnish workplaces demands continuous effort and commitment. To create more inclusive and equal workplaces, it is important for companies to integrate diversity into their strategy and operations. Not only does this makes businesses more competitive, but it also enriches society as a whole.

Futurice is an example of a company that has taken meaningful steps to promote diversity and inclusive leadership. For instance, the company has implemented an inclusive two-part leadership mentoring programme. Information about the programme is available on the on the EDIFY-EDU YouTube channel.

In the first part of the programme, the company’s management received support from external mentors that presented a new, external management model and fresh perspectives. In the second part, company managers themselves act as mentors to less experienced employees, offering support and guidance in the early stages of their careers.

This two-pronged approach has reinforced a company culture centred on diversity and inclusiveness.

According to Andersson, although Finland’s ICT sector offers promising examples of promoting diversity, there are also significant challenges. Large, international companies may have made impressive strides in promoting diversity, but smaller companies still have a long way to go.

However, Futurice’s mentoring programme shows that commitment and action can make a difference in promoting diversity and inclusive leadership.

In all sectors, the main obstacles in promoting diversity are related to management commitment and unconscious bias. As Andersson sees it, it will be difficult to bring about real change without clear management communication on the importance of diversity.

“The big challenge is that organisations are still very homogeneous,” she says. “This can easily lead to recruitment decisions focusing on familiar and safe choices, overlooking the promotion of diversity.”

Recruitment practices are therefore important to fostering diversity. Equally important, Andersson says, is for companies to identify and overcome unconscious bias in their recruitment processes. Among other things, this could mean setting up an anonymous recruitment process or diversity awareness training for recruiters.

“If prejudices are not identified and addressed, recruitment decisions can easily be biased towards the same choices over and over.”

There is much that companies can do to further diversity. Andersson recommends starting with an overview of the company’s current situation to identify areas for development and to set realistic targets for what to work on.

“Diversity must be integrated into everything that a company does and communicates. There can’t really be progress if little is done beyond paying lip service to diversity.” To avoid the lip-service problem, diversity objectives should be included in the company’s strategy. This can take the form of setting up diversity working groups and organising training sessions.

Successful diversity-promotion projects can provide valuable lessons for other organisations as well. One example of this that Andersson gives is the possibility for people of different religions to use the religious holidays of their own faith instead of those of the mainstream religion where they are. The success of such projects relies on active internal dialogue and actions that demonstrate the company’s genuine commitment to diversity.

In Finnish working life, the main areas for improvement in the field of diversity are skills development and the integration of workers from foreign backgrounds. To Andersson’s mind, although Finland needs more people from foreign backgrounds, PhD-level professionals often end up in jobs that are beneath their education level.

“The sad fact is that there are people in Finland with doctoral degrees working as dishwashers. This certainly isn’t an appropriate use of resources.”

The ICT sector has the potential to create diverse teams that can develop innovative and user-friendly solutions for a wide range of customers.

“If we want services that benefit a diverse user base, we need diverse teams,” Andersson points out. This can serve as an example to other industries and help bring about a more inclusive working life in Finland.

In Hurri’s view, the themes of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are very often seen as a cost item, but at best as a long-term investment.

“The risk I see is that companies will fail to make the link between DEI and their own operations,” Hurri says. “Without a clear link to the business, efforts to promote these issues will become secondary.”

It is important to recognise that diversity is not a threat in itself, Hurri notes: since the world is inherently diverse, the pursuit of diversity should not be seen as anything strange or alien. However, imbalances can arise if the pursuit of diversity is set as the sole objective without considering equality and inclusion.

“If diversity is a company’s only goal, the essential themes of equality and inclusion may well be overshadowed.”

Hurri has clear advice for companies that want to become more diverse. The first step is to approach the themes of DEI as a journey that requires an open mind, courage and a willingness to learn through failure.

According to Hurri, companies should be clear on why diversity matters to them and their operations, and should investigate and recognise their current situation in these regards. There are various ways of achieving this, such as conducting DEI surveys, making a related plan, setting clear targets and monitoring their implementation.

In promoting diversity, it is essential to understand that it is a long-term process that requires continual learning, adaptation and commitment. Although the ICT sector can lead the way for other industries in promoting diversity, this requires unwavering commitment from management, clear objectives and meaningful action.