Can you take a completely random, unrelated group of people with different interests, backgrounds, and personalities and have them mesh well enough to be productive in the workplace? Hopefully, this happens every day in your workplace. When we show up to work, we all bring different backgrounds and experiences, both personally and professionally. These differences can include upbringing, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, education level, career goals, etc. The list of differences is endless. This is diversity, and in this series of courses, we're going to talk about why having a diverse workforce is not only the right thing to do, but it's essential to a successful organization because of the vast benefits. In this first program, we'll talk about diversity: what it is and what it looks like in the workplace.

There are several ways that we can all work together to better accommodate our diverse backgrounds, experiences, and current needs in the workplace. Doing this is called "diversity by design," and it's not just for leaders and managers. Every employee contributes to designing our workplaces and the work we produce to be accessible for everyone. In this course, we'll discuss ways to design our workspaces to suit everyone's needs. We'll also go over various methods to encourage more diversity in your organization.

One of the biggest barriers to diversity at all levels of the workplace is stereotyping. This can show up in big managerial areas like hiring and promotion, but it can also affect day-to-day interactions between coworkers. In this program, we'll discuss why stereotyping is such a mistake. We'll define stereotypes and talk about how they show up in the workplace. We'll go over where these erroneous ideas and concepts originate from and how to avoid assigning them to those around us.

When we discriminate, stereotype, or allow biases to impact the workplace, we create a toxic environment. People become singled-out, targeted, talked about, ignored, isolated, or disrespected. They could be the best person for the job, but if social disconnect like this occurs, they won't stick around for long. Everyone wants a sense of belonging at work. In this course, we'll talk about the importance of inclusion. We'll discuss employee engagement and the need to feel valued and safe.

Does diversity pay off for companies and employees? 100%. In this course, we'll talk about why having a diverse workforce makes organizations more productive, innovative, knowledgeable, and profitable. We'll discuss the research that supports the benefits of diversity, which include greater sales, higher customer satisfaction, better competitive success, and a happier, and more engaged workforce.