FUTURE needs DIVERSITY Award
For 2024, the Hannover Region's Economic and Employment Promotion Agency has for the first time presented the "FUTURE needs ...
The "FUTURE NEEDS DIVERSITY" initiative aims to encourage companies to take a closer look at diversity in companies. Companies, science and business development come together to discuss challenges, opportunities and visions for the future - and to implement them.
The aim of the initiative is to increase diversity within companies in the Hannover Region.
Diversity is an important factor for the future - for society as a whole and also for the economy. After all, the world of work is changing! Demographic trends are affecting the availability of skilled workers, digitalization requires new skills, but also enables the development of new business models and creates opportunities for participation (Diversity Charter, 2024).
The world is becoming stronger, faster and better connected and the changing requirements and needs of future generations require new working models (Haufe 2024) and products.
To remain fit for the future, companies must react.
Diversity can be seen as a great opportunity here - as scientific studies on the impact of diversity in companies have repeatedly and impressively demonstrated.
On the one hand, employers areperceived as more attractiveif they value the diversity of their employees (Diversity Charter 2024), and the satisfactionand long-term loyalty of employeesalsoincreases(Page Group 2021).The availability ofemployees also increases when different groups of people are addressed and workplaces are designed, e.g. through accessibility.
Secondly, companies with a diverse workforce have significantlygreater innovative strength(Boston Consulting Group 2018), as collaboration between people with very different perspectives, experiences and expertise creates space for creativity. In addition, the diverse backgrounds of the workforce mean that various customer and market needs can be better understood and responded to accordingly, thereby increasing competitiveness(Page Group 2021).
All in all, it can be said that Living and valuing diversity in the company is not only a socio-political mission, but also increases economic success!
ZUKUNFT braucht VIELFALT is consistently developing the region's previous activities on the topic of diversity from the perspective of economic and employment promotion in the form of services for companies.
This involves drawing on the basic work carried out in-house, integrating existing projects and activities from the various diversity dimensions and making content transparent. There is close cooperation with cross-divisional functions, such as the in-house Equal Opportunities team.
As an employer, the Hannover Region has been a signatory to the Diversity Charter since 2021 andis thus clearly committed to diversity in the workplace!
