The early talent market is changing and becoming increasingly competitive. In fact, in 2017, the number of students planning to go to university fell to its lowest level in eight years.

Companies are having to adapt and evolve to this changing marketplace where competition and demands are high.

When it comes to making changes, increasing early talent diversity represents both a priority and a significant challenge for many businesses. Diversity within an organisation is about encouraging a wholly-inclusive workforce.

It’s about recruiting people from different backgrounds and making your application process accessible to all groups who embrace different perspectives, ideologies and beliefs about how and why things work the way they do.

It’s about bringing different ideas and opinions together within your organisation and allowing them to work cohesively towards common business goals.

Without a doubt, diversity is and should be an organisational priority. As an employer, it will be necessary to implement recruitment strategies and initiatives to help you achieve your diversity goals.

But given all of the below, it would seem crazy that a company wouldn’t invest resource and time into developing their early talent diversity.

Adding value through diversity

Part of the motivation for a company wanting to increase early talent diversity comes with the understanding of how it truly adds value to the core business. There are a number of concomitant benefits of a diverse early talent workforce which many businesses are surprisingly unaware of, including.

For starters, there’s increased productivity, work rate and efficiency. In fact, 72% of private sector companies said there was a direct link between diversity and productivity. Innovative thinking is another benefit, inspired by alternative perspectives and ideas on the same issue.

Being perceived in a positive light will come naturally. Once diversity begins to increase, it becomes easier to attract a more diverse pool of candidates.

It also gives your business the competitive edge. Diversity enhances the competitiveness of your business both within your workforce and as an organisation.

Of course, alongside this is a reduction in employee turnover – when compared to pre-diversity statistics –  and increased employee morale and teamwork.

Will Shepherd is CEO of Cohesion.