Why You Need Personality Diversity Even in a Remote Work Setting

As remote work becomes the norm, it’s essential to recognize the significance of personality diversity within teams. In this guest post, Baidhurya Mani of SellCoursesOnline.com delves into the reasons why embracing a variety of personalities is vital for promoting creativity, effective collaboration, and overall productivity in virtual work environments.

Indeed, numerous benefits come from offering your employees the chance to work remotely. However, one often overlooked aspect is personality diversity. The rationale of some businesses is this: since employees in a remote work setup are across different geographical locations, they no longer need to ensure personality diversity. 

But that’s the wrong way to look at it. According to McKinsey, more diverse and inclusive corporations are 35% more likely to perform better than their competitors. The logic is quite simple: having greater diversity in your organization — whether a remote one or not — often leads to better decision-making and outcomes. Your business will benefit from a pool of people whose diverse strengths and weaknesses complement each other.

There are different types of diversity. This article will focus on the benefits of having personality diversity in a remote work setup. 

How Personality Diversity for Business Can Benefit Your Remote Team

The term “personality diversity” is ubiquitous. There is a greater emphasis on it today because employees are more vocal about its importance on social media. But why has this concept become a business management buzzword, even for remote teams? Below are some ways your remote team can benefit from greater personality diversity.

1. Varied Perspectives

A study by Cloverpop found that diverse teams are 87% better at decision-making. So, it is essential to emphasize how crucial different perspectives are in a work setting, even in a remote one. 

People come from different cultures, and their experiences shape how they see the world. Therefore, it is vital to have a diverse pool of people who do not see the world similarly. Varied perspectives bring fresh ideas and promote healthy discussion and constructive feedback. This can benefit remote teams significantly, as they can provide unique viewpoints that can lead to better decision-making.

For example, imagine you have a remote design team who all like to play it safe. They’ll all approach a problem similarly and suggest similar design outcomes. Instead of coming up with edgy designs, they’ll probably stick to designs that have already proven to work.

Alternatively, suppose you have a remote team of people driven by different characteristics — those who play it safe and those who are risk-takers. In that case, they will approach the design problem from different angles. That will ensure an inclusive problem-solving and decision-making process, leading to a holistic design solution. You’d probably end up with a better design: one that’s edgy but is still within the bounds of what is acceptable.

2. Efficient Division of Tasks 

When you have personality diversity in a remote work setup, you can better match your employees to the role they are best suited for. This, ultimately, ensures efficiency. 

Assume one of your team members is a go-getter. If you assign them as project managers, they’ll be more efficient in pursuing team goals than someone who’s more happy-go-lucky. So, in the end, you can reach remote team goals in the least amount of time.

You should assign tasks to remote employees taking into account their personality, too. You could give your remote employees a survey and ask them where they would like to be assigned. They’d typically answer roles they know they’d excel in. You could complement this survey with a personality test (and a skills test, of course) to make your own assessment and final decision.

Whatever you decide, just remember that client relations, customer service, and executive roles, in particular, require unique personalities apart from skill sets for efficient and effective results. These fields require employees — whether working remotely or not — to be outgoing and confident.

3. Better Productivity and Collaboration

According to a Forbes report titled Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce, there is a relationship between workplace diversity and employee productivity. The report notes that employee productivity increased by 77% after workplaces introduced diversity initiatives. This isn’t surprising. As we’ve discussed in the section above, matching employees with specific personalities to specific jobs fosters efficiency. When you’re more efficient, you’re more productive. Greater productivity in a remote work setup also translates to higher revenues for the organization. 

How to Ensure Personality Diversity in a Remote Work Setup

To ensure personality diversity in a remote work setting, you need to actively create a culture that fosters this concept. You also have to tweak your recruitment process. Let’s discuss each of these two points in detail: 

1. Create a Company Culture That Values Diversity

To effectively build a company culture that values diversity, you need to state explicitly that you stand for it immediately. This will ensure all your remote employees are on the same page from the get-go. An effective About Us page can help here. 

Once you’ve made clear that diversity is important to you, you can implement the following tips to further integrate the culture of diversity into your remote work setting:

Build an online community where employees with different personalities (and age, gender, among others) can exchange their different ideas and interact in other ways. This should be apart from the usual online platforms where your remote employees get together to communicate for work.
Involve your current remote team in building this culture and instill values of acceptance and respect for all. You can do this through meetings, team-building exercises, and employee training using video conferencing tools.
Always prioritize representation in remote work meetings so that every employee feels comfortable and feels like they belong.
It is essential to make all your remote employees feel valued if they did a good job. 

Make sure you also put in place feedback loops. Feedback can help you determine whether there are brewing issues in your remote team. You’ll know if someone feels like they’re being excluded from the group. You can, therefore, address the problem before it becomes a full-blown issue.

2. Recruit for Personality Diversity 

To ensure personality diversity, you’ll need to alter your recruiting procedure. You don’t need a significant overhaul, but a few changes can go a long way in ensuring a more personality-diverse remote team.

You should start by listing your business goals and aligning your recruitment strategy with the same. Then determine the kind of personality that would work for that specific position. For example, if you need to improve customer satisfaction, you’ll need to hire someone for customer support. Since these remote employees will have to interact with clients, they should be friendly and exude confidence.

You’ll need to attract the right candidates for these open positions. So, when you draft a job posting, pay attention to the content. Be as specific as possible. If you need someone who’s friendly and outgoing, you can say so.

Look at the language and images you use, too. Switching between formal and informal language can attract very different types of candidates. If you’re looking for an outgoing person, for instance, informal language might be more effective. Formal language may attract people who are more serious.

When you finally have the right candidate for the desired role, ensure a smooth onboarding process for them. You want to make sure your new hires genuinely feel like they belong in your organization from the get-go. So, you can hold an online meeting to introduce the new hire to your remote team. Send personalized welcome emails, too.

Conclusion

Personality diversity in a remote work setting is not just a value-based ideology. It has a measurable impact on your organization’s performance and revenue. Therefore, it is no longer prudent to treat it as a choice. It should instead be considered mandatory for the growth of your business. 

The foundation you build in your remote team should be strong enough so you can ensure the culture of diversity in your remote work setting is institutionalized. This will help ensure your company reaps the benefits now and in the future. With a personality-diverse remote team, in particular, you won’t just have a wide array of skills and ideas to leverage. You’ll have a remote team that can work together and reach your group goals quickly.

Author Bio

Baidhurya Mani is the founder of SellCoursesOnline.com. He regularly shares tips, tools, and strategies to help creators and entrepreneurs build a successful online course business.