Let’s start with a simple truth: every business wants to hire the best possible employees for the salaries they can afford to pay.

But if you’re excluding an entire group of people, whether intentionally or not, you can no longer claim to be hiring the best. And that’s not just a moral failure. It’s a business mistake.

What Baseball Taught Us About Hiring the Best

Let’s journey back to 1947. The Brooklyn Dodgers broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson. They were quickly followed by the Cleveland Indians and the New York Giants. And guess what? Those teams became the best in baseball.

By opening their doors to players they had previously excluded for arbitrary, non-performance reasons, they dramatically improved their teams. From 1885 to 1946, the Dodgers won six National League pennants. In the twelve years after they integrated their roster and added players like Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe, they won six more, twice as many championships in a fraction of the time.

Why? Because they widened their talent pool. They stopped excluding people for reasons that had nothing to do with performance. And it worked.

This Lesson Applies to Every Business

You don’t need to be running a baseball team to understand the takeaway.

If you’re overlooking talented candidates for arbitrary reasons, whether it’s disability, race, age, neurodiversity, or background, your competitors who embrace inclusive hiring are going to leave you behind.

Yet many companies say, “This doesn’t apply to us. Our jobs are open to everyone. We’re equal opportunity employers.” Maybe. But look closer. Look at the outcomes. Look in the mirror.

Ask yourself:

• How many people with differing abilities work on your team?
• How neurodiverse is your workplace?
• Does the diversity of your employees reflect the diversity of your community?

This isn’t about quotas. It’s about business performance.

A Personal Example

Years ago, I led an organization and noticed that we had fewer black employees than you might have expected based on the population in the area where we had our office. If you asked, I would have told you, and my colleagues would have agreed, that we would never discriminate against black candidates. Yet the reality told us otherwise.

We took action.

We looked at how we were writing our job postings. We examined where we were advertising jobs. We reached out to community leaders and listened to the experiences of our Black employees.

And guess what happened? We got more Black candidates. Our applicant pool improved. And we hired excellent employees we might have otherwise missed.

We weren’t under pressure. We weren’t trying to meet a quota. We didn’t lower our standards. We acted because we wanted to run a better business.

And it worked.

The Bottom Line Is the Bottom Line

It’s easy to make the moral argument for inclusive hiring. It’s the right thing to do. It reflects civil rights values. It brings dignity and opportunity to people too often left out.

But I want to focus on the business case because we hear all the time that what matters most is the bottom line.

Well, here’s the bottom line: inclusive hiring will help your business succeed.

At John’s Crazy Socks, over half our employees have differing abilities. And they’re not here for charity, they’re here because they perform. Because inclusion strengthens our team, our culture, and our customer experience.

The Risks of Exclusion

In today’s political climate, some leaders are afraid to even say the words “inclusive hiring.” DEI has become a flashpoint. But if you exclude people from our hiring pool, whether intentionally or unintentionally, people from underrepresented backgrounds, people with disabilities, older candidates, LGBTQ+ folks, or anyone else with talent and drive, your business is going to lose.

So, look at your workforce. Not just your policies, your people. Are you truly hiring inclusively? If not, what steps are you taking to ensure that you have the best possible employees? What steps are you taking to help your business succeed?

Because hiring inclusively isn’t a nice thing to do. It is just good for society, it’s how we build great businesses.