McKinsey’s recent “Delivering through Diversity” report provided businesses with plenty of food for thought. Perhaps most interestingly, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 21% more likely to enjoy better-than-average profitability, and those in the top quartile for ethnic diversity are 33% more likely to enjoy it.

It makes sense. A diverse workplace is one where a range of viewpoints and attitudes, informed by a range of backgrounds, contribute to the organisation’s success. If everyone came from the same points of origin, you’d get the same perspectives, the same suggestions, and the same outcomes time after time.

Nowadays there really is a huge emphasis on the importance of DEIB in the workplace. DEIB (or diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging) is important because by promoting DEIB, your business can attract and retain top employees, increase employee engagement, offer better decision-making, create a meaningful process, and enhance performance.

Greater diversity makes for more profitable and more productive businesses – but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to achieve: there’s so much more to it than instituting diversity quotas.

Here’s how you can get started.

Make an explicit commitment to diversity.

We need to move beyond the idea of diversity and inclusion as a legal obligation and start thinking of it as a strategic necessity.

That means making an explicit and unambiguous commitment to it in your branding. You want every candidate who thinks about applying for a role at your organisation to believe they will fit in and that their skills can be useful. Don’t let them make assumptions about it. Infuse diversity into your values, your behaviour, and into the public face of your company.

If you make diversity a part of your corporate identity, then it becomes something you have to live up to – rather than just a tick-box exercise.

Root out unconscious bias

We often think about bias in terms of explicit and clearly stated preferences and aversions. But sometimes it’s not as simple as that. Bias is often unconscious: it manifests in ways we don’t always understand.

For example, you might unknowingly turn away female candidates by including traditionally male-biased language in job descriptions – some words like ‘competitive’, ‘aggressive’, ‘decisive’, ‘champion’ are gender-coded to favour men. The more aware you are of these biases, the less likely you are to let them colour your impressions.

Software can help address bias by identifying and removing this language and automatically parsing CVs to obscure names. This will help you make a fair decision based on skills and qualifications rather than unconscious belief.

Broaden access to learning and development opportunities – especially in leadership training

It doesn’t stop at the recruitment stage. When you’ve hired candidates from diverse backgrounds, you need to make sure they have diverse opportunities – just like everyone else. This is especially important when it comes to leadership training. Diversity is important at all levels of the workforce, but it is critical at boardroom-level.

Locking candidates from non-traditional backgrounds out of decision-making isn’t good for you from a moral, operational, or commercial perspective. Make sure diverse candidates have the tools, the confidence, and the room they need to succeed.

Rethink your understanding of diversity

It’s great that we’re thinking more about diversity in the workplace, but we shouldn’t restrict it to ‘traditionally’ diverse groups. Ethnic and gender diversity are hugely important, as is accounting for disability and illness.

But in some respects, diversity is very poorly understood. For one thing, when it comes to neurodiversity, much more could be done to include employees with ADHD, autism, dyspraxia, and other differences.

Equally, workplaces don’t always consider intersectionality, which – and this is a gross simplification – refers to the way gender, race, and sexuality can overlap in ways that disadvantage people. It’s obvious enough that a South Asian LGBT woman will have a different working experience than a white, heterosexual man, but it will also be radically different from the experience of a straight South Asian man or a black LGBT woman.

Every organisation should work to understand the full scope of human experience beyond the boxes it is obligated to tick.

Promote flexible working

Finally, accounting for diversity typically means incorporating more diverse ways of working. Not everyone can comfortably work the traditional 9-5: maybe they have physical obstacles, maybe they have children, maybe they simply prefer to work from home. Give your employees options, and you’ll have a more profitable business and a happier workforce.