Amid a dynamic and constantly evolving employment landscape, shipping and any other industry needs to embrace a new way of thinking to develop diversity and inclusion for a more operational and sustainable working environment environment. but which are these diversity characteristics?
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SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Inclusive teams are educated about sexual orientations, like heterosexual, gay, lesbian, biseual, asexual, etc. |
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AGE: Each generation has its own perceptions, but this cannot affect some from excelling over others. |
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GENDER IDENTITY: These may or not correspond t oa person's sex assigned at birth such as transgender, non-binary, etc. |
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CULTURAL BACKGROUND: Cultural differences can bring wealth of learning opportunities in a work team. |
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PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: Hiring individuals with varying disabilities will bring unique ideas to make a team more inclusive. |
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MENTAL HEALTH: A trend of greater discussions on employee wellness may combat the stigma around mental health at work. |
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LANGUAGE AND ACCENTS: Understanding accent biases can help teams to challenge their own biases. |
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EDUCATION: In some cases, removing education requirements allows candidates with more diverse backgrounds to apply. |
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PERSONAL STATUS: Marital or parental status bias can prevent highly qualified individuals from getting a job. |
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CRIMINAL BACKGROUND: Requiring criminal history on job applications triggers social bias at work or prevents an individual from being even hired. |
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POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS: To be efficient, a workplace must accept everyone's beliefs, even if they are different from one another. |
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WORK EXPERIENCE: Each time an employee moves into a new role, the bring their previous skills with them. |
Source: Safety4Sea