There is a positive association between diversity and the workplace, with 80.2% of polled professionals agreeing that their organization has an official commitment to treat everyone equally, Bayt.com, the leading career site in the Middle East, said in its recent poll entitled "Diversity of Thought in the Middle East and North Africa Workplace". The poll showed 78% of respondents feel that their organization is good at connecting multiple tasks and ideas together in a novel way; 35.2% strongly agree with this sentiment. Roughly half of professionals polled (51.8%) are comfortable sharing their views at work, while 36.2% are only comfortable to a certain extent. Interestingly, the majority of employees in the Middle East region (86.3%) agree that their organization has an official commitment to consider all new ideas, even those that go against the grain. Only 13.7% find this to not be the case. Better problem-solving and innovation is seen as the best advantage of having a diverse workplace by 34.3% of professionals surveyed. 9.2% of respondents think that the greatest advantage of promoting diversity is an improved public image, while 3.2% believe that workplace diversity leads to increased employee retention. Increase in profit was deemed an important advantage by 6.5% of respondents; 11.8% think all of these can be considered a valuable advantage. When it comes to an organization's diversity management in the Middle East, only 6.4% of professionals said that their organization has a dedicated diversity team. According to 40% of respondents, it is the job of the CEO, managers and other team leaders, while 15.8% think that it is the HR department's responsibility. 17% of respondents believe that diversity is an individual responsibility, while 12.6% think it's the responsibility of everyone in the organization. The poll shows that only 8.3% of employed respondents believe that no one is responsible for managing diversity. According to the poll, 80% of employees in the Middle East feel that their company encourages diversity. However, one in five respondents indicated they think that race, culture, and/or gender may still be discriminated against in their experience in their workplace. When it comes to diversity, 20.4% believe that gender is their organization's weakest point; 18.6% think it is nationality; 9.1% believe it is age; and 8.3% indicated they feel that the disabled are being discriminated against. Conversely, 27.1% of respondents throughout the region believe that the area of diversity their organization is best at is nationality; 9.3% believe it is gender; 11.1% think it is age; and 2.7% believe it is disability. One third (33%) of Middle East respondents believe that their organization has no weak points when it comes to diversity and a similar number (34.1%) find that their organization does well with all areas of diversity. The poll also revealed that the workforce in the Middle East is very confident in their own set of professional skills, with 86.2% of those polled believing that their skills are as diverse as they would like them to be. Only 13.8% think that there is room for improvement. There is a high drive among employees to benefit from the diversity of thought and innovations in their organizations. 31.1% learn by interacting with specialists in their field; 12.5% attend courses and lectures whenever possible; and 12.2% read all they can to learn from the vast wealth of resources. Just 3% of poll respondents do nothing. "When it comes to diversity in the workplace, respondents from across the Middle East region gave a positive impression. Diversity is no doubt a driving factor for the way in which the respondents' working environments are continually evolving, leveling out the playing field for all employees," said Suhail Masri, VP of Sales, Bayt.com. "At Bayt.com, our mission has always been to empower people with the tools and technologies to build their lifestyle of choice, and we want to empower employers by sharing with them valuable insights into the minds of professionals in the region so they can make better decisions when it comes to attracting, hiring, and retaining top talent." — SG
