Diversity is critical for business success

and political beliefs, genders, socioeconomic backgrounds, sexual orientation, and geographic (foreign and domestic) locations. Successful companies are those that have diversity in their DNA — not those that perceive diversity as an optional bonus.

Why is diversity critical to growth and prosperity? Among other things, it creates a culture of ideation and innovation, brings varied values, perspectives and views to the table, and gives companies a competitive advantage that breeds success. The benefits of diversity have been validated consistently in research by the nation’s leading institutions. Forbes studies, including “Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce,” have identified workforce diversity and inclusion as key drivers of innovation and growth. McKinsey studies have found that companies with more diverse top teams are also higher financial performers. Harvard Business School has found that multicultural networks fuel more creativity. The list goes on.

Increasingly, corporate and individual clients are making diversity part of their key criteria when selecting companies to hire. Many of the larger companies have extensive diversity programs to cultivate diverse talent, including recruitment, training and retention. For many, these programs are proving quite effective.

However, companies in industries like technology, which have historically been more skewed toward white, Indian and Asian males, are having a particularly difficult time achieving their diversity goals in some job categories. In part, this stems from a myriad of reasons beyond their control, including the fact that many of the diverse candidates they would like to employ were raised in geographies where they had little exposure to these career options, or limited access to the quality early education that can be important in shaping technology career paths. It may not be so easy to diversify your ethnic pool if the quality and training of the talent available in the hiring process is coming predominantly from limited groups.