A diverse body of talent with fresh ideas and perspectives is one of the essential ingredients to Ibhongo’s longterm success. As we will be celebrating Mandela Day on the 18th July, we look at Diversity as a base of developing a stronger Ibhongo Team. As you look around our office, is everyone just like you? Probably not. Today, our workforce is a better reflection of the South African population with a significant mix of genders, race, religion, age and other background factors.
The long-term success of Ibhongo calls for a diverse body of talent that can bring fresh ideas, perspectives and views to our workplace. The challenge that diversity poses, therefore, is enabling Ibhongo team leaders and managers to capitalise on the mixture of genders, cultural backgrounds, ages and lifestyles to respond to business opportunities more rapidly and creatively. It is our view that diversity is no longer just a black/white, male/female, old/young issue. It is much more complicated and interesting than that.
Diversity is about our relatedness, our connectedness, our interactions, where the lines cross. Diversity is many things – a bridge between organizational life and the reality of people’s lives, building corporate capability, the framework for interrelationships between people, a learning exchange, a strategic lens on
the world. A benefit of a diverse workforce is the ability for us to tap into the many talents that our teams from different backgrounds, perspectives, abilities and disabilities bring to the workplace. In pursuing building a stronger Ibhongo team, it is important that remove the pigeonhole barriers that place our people in different silos based on the diversity profile.