Workplace diversity is more than just a slogan. In the year 2021, businesses have come to understand that diversity is simply a good business decision. Diverse teams are more creative, more likely to re-examine facts, less prone to groupthink, and more likely to make good decisions. But in order to build those teams, you need strong leadership. 

Strong leadership comes from a few key areas: having the right mindset, building trust, cultivating engagement, and encouraging employees to support diversity and inclusion. Leaders have to interrogate their own approach so that they can work towards the diverse teams they need—and for leaders who do so early and often, the results speak for themselves. 

The employee relationship to the workplace is changing. In the Baby Boomer generation, work was about collecting a paycheck and doing your time in exchange for retirement benefits. In the Millennial generation, work is part of your identity, and a big part of the Millennial identity is altruism and social responsibility. So when Millennials go to work, they want companies that align with their values. 

There’s just one problem: less than half of Millennials think businesses behave ethically. 

In order to attract the best talent, businesses need to change this perception. That means leading with values, demonstrating ethics, and showing that values translate into action. In the process, businesses can create a more positive work environment, strengthen their competitiveness, and set themselves up for future success. 

The COVID-19 pandemic radically altered the landscape of work. And as businesses shift into the post-pandemic world, they have to deal with new realities in talent management. Like the shift from the biggest work-from-home experiment in human history to...the new normal. 

HR professionals will need to adapt to new technology to reflect a new talent acquisition environment and a new talent management environment. Hiring will have to reflect flexible labor, offering the right incentives for in-person work. In the office, HR professionals will have to learn how to manage both remote employees and person employees.

Since 2005, there’s been a 173% increase in remote work, 11% faster than the rest of the workforce and 47 times faster than the work-from-home population. Then COVID hit, and almost every employee got a taste of the work from home life. These days, 80% of employees want to work from home at least some of the time, and 3 in 4 employees consider remote work the new normal. 

There’s just one problem: translating your work culture into your work-from-home culture. 

In fact, culture is the hardest thing to transition to remote work, even though many managers believe that going remote is as sending a worker home with a laptop and a to-do list. You have to invest in your remote culture just as much as your in-person culture, which means giving employees signs that they matter, no matter how far apart you are.