Diversity is good for business – Liberty director
The Economist Businesswomen Club hosted Board Director at Liberty Life, Saima Nambinga as their guest speaker for their networking breakfast on 21 April at Am Weinberg Conference Centre.
Speaking on diversity at the workplace and in leadership, Nambinga said in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s demise, it came under public scrutiny and criticism for becoming distracted in pushing, inter alia, issues involving diversity demands, and purportedly being busy with these nonsensical ideologies instead of applying common sense business practices.
She said she is for diversity in the workplace because statistics show that groups diverse in gender, race and age perform better, make better decisions and experience more profitability. “Companies in the tip quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have better financial returns than their respective national industry medians,” she explained.
She said the workplace needs more people of different ages, gender, ethnicities, sexual orientations, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and educational levels. “A diverse team is crucial for creativity and social justice, is good for the bottom line, which is money, can educate employees and clients and reach untapped customer demographics,” she added.
Nambinga emphasised that in the unspoken side of diversity, women should support each other because empowering women is essential to the health and social development of communities.
“Women work harder because they are forced to juggle different responsibilities involving home, work and social responsibilities and even though we do not earn more than men, our investment capabilities are higher than men,” she said
She highlighted that roughly 57% of employees feel their company can be doing more and 41% of managers admitted to being too busy to implement diversity inclusive programmes in the workplace.
“We know that treating people equitably is not bad for business, and studies show that treating people equitably is good for business, so why do people think that treating people equitably is bad for business?” she asked.
