Diversity improves a company's talent pool because the outreach required to find diverse job candidates improves the hiring process. Many companies believe that in order to hire minority workers, they must lower their standards or grant preferential treatment. The result is better hiring from all sources, including minority groups. Companies with diverse workforces can capitalize on those employees' differences by assigning tasks to different staff members based on their unique talents or perspectives. Diversity not only helps create good ideas, but it can help prevent companies from unwittingly offending potential customers, or overlooking market opportunities entirely.
Diversity is especially important for companies that do business overseas.
In addition, many Latinos and other minorities are multilingual, a valuable skill in the global marketplace. While English has emerged as the de facto language of international business, customers naturally prefer doing business in their own language, when possible. So, more than ever, corporate America has a reason to care about diversity in the workplace. And, as a result, we must persuade corporate America to care about diversity in higher education. But there is a long way to go in terms of making U.S. college campuses truly diverse.