Software Engineer at Booking.com, Rafaël Garcia-Suarez, revealed in a recent blog post about how diversity and positive communication skills hold a great deal of importance in his workplace.

Suarez highlights how working sufficiently in a dynamic workplace is crucial to Booking.com, since it is easier to build products for large diverse audiences from all over the world when you have a diverse team.

“Diversity and embracing diversity are much more profound. First and foremost, it is important for each person to be accepted. In a workplace where diversity is recognised and highly regarded there is less emphasis on conforming to a supposedly standard model of behaviour,” wrote Saurez in the recent blog post.

“We spend a large part of our lives at work. Why should work be, at all, about interacting with rows of faceless clones, all alike? Why wouldn’t you choose colleagues that will teach you, challenge you, enrich you and make you better instead? Why wouldn’t we encourage you to contribute in the same ways?”

‘Diversity gives us strength’

It is easy to create a disrespectful work environment with lack of empathy. Active steps towards positive communication and promoting diversity are key for colleagues, ensuring the workplace is a safe, friendly environment.

“By definition, any work environment is a small, closed group from which it’s difficult to walk away. Inside such a group, everyone should have an equal opportunity to be part of the group conversation with nobody feeling diminished or a less worthy contributor. Freedom of expression, often used as a justification to say anything, even offensive, can also though be the cover for a fraction of the group dominating all expression, even unintentionally,” Saurez observed.

“Be humble, open and friendly and remember that our diversity gives us strength. After all, this is one of our cornerstone values at Booking.com.”