Impact Of Workforce Diversity On Organizational Performance

Diversity has become a central element of the modern organizationallandscape- so much so that 75% of the 50 largest companies in the U. S now have diversity directors or managers. A whole new industry has even materialized diversity training to help organizations address the challenge that diversity creates. This interest in diversity would not be surprising. As firms move toward flatter organizational structures featuring groups and teams, and the global economy as a whole.

Although business has been conducted on an international deal for many years, in Nigeria International business has gained greater visibility and importance in recent years, because of the growth of large multinational corporations.

International businesses, involves teams action across national boundaries. These transaction includes the transfer of goods, services, technology, managerial knowledge and skills, and capital to other countries. This in twin fostered diversity in workforce among business organization.

This research however chose to investigate the “EFFECT OF WORKFORCE DIVERSITY ON ORGANIZATIONS PERFORMANCE”. Many multi-nationally owned organizations today employs workforce comprising of indigenes and non-indigenes as well as mix of genders (male and female) and age groups.

The diversity among each employee profers different kind of input from each individuals. What began for many U. S organizations for instance, as an effort to meet governmental and legal requirements has evolved into a strategic priority aimed at positioning organizations more competitively in the market place.

Diversity And Organizational Performance

It is estimated that organizations spend 18 billion annually on diversity training. In addition, organizations devote resources to a variety of other diversity-related initiatives, including dedicated diversity management staffs and workplace programs and benefits such as flexible work arrangements, domestic partner benefits, corporate-sponsored employee affinity groups, and other programs designed to attract and detain a diverse workforce.

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Organizations devote resources to diversity initiatives because they believe diversity is a business imperative and good for the bottom-line.

And for any business organization to accomplish their objectives they must make use of both their human and material resource effectively and efficiently. Organization devote resources to diversity initiatives because they believe diversity is a business imperative, demographic slights in the U. S labour market, for instance, specifically the projected rapid growth of the minority labour force over the 10 years, impacts organisations on a number of fronts Konrad (2003), has stated three (3) primary arguments in the business case for diversity.

First, competition for the best talent requires organizations to reach out and embrace an increasingly diverse labour pool. Secondly, a global economy requires that organizations have a diverse workforce so that they can effectively deal with an increasingly diverse customer base. Thus, a diverse workforce can lead to an increased market share, where as lade of diversity in the workforce can lead to a shrinking market share.

A third argument is that demography diversity unleashes creativity, innovation, and improved group problem solving, which in turn enhances the competitiveness of the organization. In addition, one could add that in the context of the debate and controversy surrounding affirmative action programme, diversity is a more palatable and socially acceptable way to address race and gender issues. Finally, it can also be seen that in a multicultural society, attempting to increase workforce diversity is simply the right and ethical thing to do as corporate citizens, regardless of the economic implications.

Performance in the business realm is judged by the amount or level of productivity recorded by an organization, which will in turn foster the „going-concern? phrase of business. The relationship between workforce diversity and performance in organization brings out both the positive and negative effect of diversity of workforce on organisation? s performance. Therefore, if an organization plans to survive as well as achieve its objectives, it must keep in check its workforce diversity, making sure that the positive effect is greater than the negative effect on their performance.