Increasing globalization demands increased interaction among people from diverse backgrounds.
People no longer live and work in isolated communities; instead, they are part of a global economy that competes on a global scale. Every organization must diversify in order to be competitive for this reason. It’s crucial for management to maximize and capitalize on workplace diversity, particularly in the cannabis business. For example, according to a study, the ethnicity most affected by the war on drugs is the African American community.
Managers and supervisors must be aware of how the workplace is evolving and changing. A multicultural workplace requires managers to adjust their managerial skills because managing diversity is a key organizational challenge.
Managers can efficiently manage diverse workforces through the implementation of a diversity plan. It offers a broad description of workplace diversity, explores the advantages and challenges of managing diverse workplaces, and offers practical methods for handling diverse workforces.
What Is Diversity?
Diversity can be summarised as the recognition, acknowledgment, and acceptance of people’s differences in terms of their age, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and other characteristics.
Cannabis companies must embrace diversity and aim to become inclusive organizations since diversity has the potential to enhance productivity and give businesses a competitive edge.
Diversity In The Cannabis Industry
With $24 billion in revenue just last year, this newly legalized and regulated industry has garnered considerable interest from businessmen. The War on Drugs has disproportionately affected groups, and their representation is minimal. Only 19% of cannabis businesses in 2017 were owned by or had a minority ownership stake.
Campaigns for social justice are one approach to level the playing field, but diversity training in the workplace can still have a considerable impact.
How To Establish Diversity In Your Cannabis Business?
A cannabis business must first ascertain whether it is getting diverse candidate applicants; if not, it must ascertain why.
People of color, women, and those who are economically disadvantaged could face challenges when seeking out business opportunities and resources. Because of this, many advocates in the cannabis sector are setting the groundwork for more women’s and people of color enterprises, as well as for their representation in executive and managerial positions.
What Must A Diversity Plan Include?
Many states’ cannabis regulatory authorities mandate that all candidates for cannabis licenses provide a thorough diversity plan along with their application. Each business’s unique strategy includes a guarantee that the company will carry out each of the steps that follow:
- Hiring and maintaining a diverse team
- Promoting the hiring of minority workers
- Maintain a metric to guarantee diversity objectives are accomplished.
How To Write A Cannabis Diversity Plan
Setting goals
The core values of your business must be reflected in each of your plans, including the diversity strategy. The presence of the organization’s ultimate mission statement demonstrates its dedication to its staff by enabling them to see the direction in which everyone is moving and the goals that they are striving to reach.
Collect data
Employers need to understand their workforce after establishing a core statement in order to effectively customize their initiatives. Keeping track of your own data over time and making modifications when needed may be necessary. Demographic data may include the following: age, disability, ethnicity, gender, race, and many others.
Employers can better understand their staff members and address any needs and issues as they arise by using the information that has been collected for both diversity planning and human resources planning practices.
Analyzing The Data
The next critical step in enacting effective solutions is data analysis. For example, you might discover that there is no diversity in gender, based on demographic data and proportions in each group. The solution to this would be hiring the gender that is disproportionately represented in your cannabis company.
Develop A Plan
There could never be a single curriculum that would address the diversity challenge. A flexible and tailored strategy would be ideal in this situation. The community, your customers, and your staff should all relate to the strategic plan’s objectives.
Conduct Diversity Training
Diversity training will probably be needed for the executive team and other leaders which will highlight their shortcomings, and will probably surprise them. Following that, they can use the newly gained understanding to start an organization-wide program for cultural sensitivity.
Wrap Up
A diversified workforce is a reflection of a shifting marketplace and world. Cannabis businesses can benefit greatly from having diverse work teams. Respecting differences among individuals will improve the working environment by giving it a competitive edge and boosting productivity. Employees benefit from diversity management because it promotes a safe and secure environment where everyone has access to opportunities and challenges.
