The Impacts of Workplace Diversity on Performance of Employees

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INTRODUCTION

Background

Diversity can be perceived as any parameter that can be applied to distinguish groups and individuals from one another whereby these parameters can either be visible or invisible (Foma 2014). Diversity at workplace is used to describe the individual differences exists between the workforce of an organisation. These individual differences can either be based on; linguistics, race, ethnicity, ancestry, culture, education, geographic location, religion, gender, marital status, age, physical abilities, experience and so on (Elsaid, 2012). A diversified workforce is comprised of individuals with varying characteristics. Individuals have different backgrounds, origins, and experiences due to which it is inevitable to have workplace diversity (Srivastava, & Agarwal, 2012).

In 1980s the concept of workplace diversity was emerged and it was highlighted as a model which can help organisations to be more creative and productive to ultimately achieve competitive advantage. It is considered variable for organisations to achieve workplace diversity as right blend of diversified workforce tends to increase profitability (Roberson & Kulik, 2007). However to be able to attract and retain right blend of employees it is necessary for organisations to develop and maintain the organisational culture with workplace diversity at its centre. This will not only foster the corporate image of an organisation but will also create an environment to flourish workforce diversity.

As per Childs (2005) it is a worldwide phenomenon for organisations, especially for multinational corporations to have diversified workforce. That is why it is argued that if a business wants to achieve success then it is a must for it to have a global perspective on workforce diversity and integrate it in its business conduct to be able to address the cross-cultural differences. Nowadays in organisations individuals from different countries, religions, societies and cultures work together. Individuals from different countries, religions, societies and cultures tends to have dissimilar values, believes, way of socializing and doing work. When such diversified individuals interact with each other it is possible for them to have conflict on certain issues therefore it is essential for the organisation to be able to address the individual differences so that workforce diversity can prove fruitful for the organisation rather than a drawback.

From management point of view various challenges and opportunities are related with a diversified workforce. Some of the challenges which can arise by having a diversified workforce are; interpersonal conflicts, personal biases, resistance of change, segment based communication networks, individual versus group interest, group cohesiveness, and lobbying (Agarwal, 2012). Moreover if the challenges which workforce diversity arises are not addressed properly then it can negatively impact organisational performance, employee turnover, employee motivation and satisfaction. (Smith, 2010)

The reality of workplace diversity is a testimony to the fact that the new organisations are becoming variegated more than ever regarding race, ethnicity, and gender (Foma 2014).  Morgan & Várdy (2009) conceptualises workplace diversity as a broad spectrum of differences that determine how people relate with one another and accomplish business goals. As such, an organisation with a diversified workplace is characterised by staff members who possess specific attributes that differentiate them from each another. According to Lockwood (2005), these heterogeneous qualities include workers’ actions, values and belief systems that differ by ethnicity, gender, age, and physical abilities and lifestyle.

The increasing globalisation in the world calls for more interaction among persons from various backgrounds. Individuals no longer work in a racially or ethnically homogeneous environment as they presently comprise members of international economy competing within a global environment (Morgan, & Várdy, 2009). As a result of this, many businesses are embracing workforce diversity in the quest to remain competitive. There are several positive elements to diversity in a company, such as haring of ideas as a result of the different cultures of staff, the cultivation of friendship without prejudices, employee learn to adapt to with the heterogeneous environment, employee retention is more likely to happen owing to a healthy rivalry. On the other side, there are negative aspects such as communication barriers, and opposition to change. This means that working with an organisation that has people from different backgrounds can significantly affect the way supervisors and managers manage the employees. This study will explore the effects of workplace diversity on the management of the personnel.

The Research Question

The 21^st-century business trends of globalisation and the growing ethnic racial and gender diversity have shifted managers’ focus to the management of corporate image and organisational performance. But, both business image and performance are functions of employee management. Besides, countless management publications have argued that the benefits of workplace diversification can be measured by business performance. However, the particular connection between workplace diversity and workforce management is rarely made clear, and almost only limited article to the best of the researcher’s knowledge has reported actual research data backing up such a connection. It is, for this reason, my study proposes to fill this critical gap by investigating the impact of workplace diversity on employee management. In view of this the research question of this study is; does workforce diversity play any role in improving the performance of employees?

The Research Objectives

1. To determine the benefits or drawbacks of having diversified workforce.
2. To find the effect of workforce diversity on performance of employees.

• To analyze the impact of workforce diversity on performance of managers.

1. To study the findings obtained from the past literature to ascertain whether or not a relationship exists between the workforce diversity and performance of employees.
2. The make recommendations regarding the use of diversified workforce in an organisation for improving employees’ performance.

Academic Rationale for the Research

Managing diversity poses a significant administration challenge, hence managerial expertise must accommodate and facilitate a harmonious multicultural work environment. A study investing the nexus between workplace diversity and workforce management will enable managers and supervisors to understand better how the modern workplace environment is changing and evolving. This will ultimately equip managers with the necessary knowledge on how to deal with work place diversity and also to effectively manage the heterogeneous staff.

 

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

The literature based on theory and empirical research related with the workforce diversity is reviewed in this chapter. It includes the theoretical and empirical literature regarding the dimension of workforce diversity and the concept of diversity management. However as the aim of this study is to identify the impact of workforce diversity on the performance of employees or organisation therefore the past empirical literature regarding the impact of workforce diversity on the performance of employees are primarily focused. Moreover limited empirical evidence was found regarding the workforce diversity on performance of managers. Besides, it was noted that in the past literature the workforce diversity and workplace diversity is used to express the same concept therefore the words workforce diversity and workplace diversity are used in this study interchangeably.

The Dimensions of Workforce Diversity

According to Shen et al. (2009), there are many dimensions of the diversity of workers within an organisation which can be classified as either internal or external. The external dimension of workforce diversity is based on gender, age, ethnic/racial diversity, and educational diversity. The internal dimension of workforce diversity is based on; values, trends, and personal features. (Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt, & Jonsen, 2010)

External Dimensions

Most researches (Ozturk & Tatli 2016; Richard et al. 2013; Ragins et al. 2003) indicate that there are differences between male and female gender which impact work performance. On the same note, those studies have demonstrated that there are differences between male and female gender when it comes to the ability to tackle problems, critical thinking skills, learning speed and motivation. Some studies also (Patrick & Kumar 2012) report that the rate of absenteeism among women is significantly higher than among their men counterparts. Such discrepancies call for the development of strategies to overcome these challenges.

According to Barak (2013), 45 years and over workforce make up about 75% of the employees in both private and public sector combined. It was argued that the challenges managers encounter when dealing with this age group are essentially the rigidity and unwillingness to learn new and efficient ways of working. On the contrary, the younger age group (24-35) is more fast learners, and they can quickly adapt, however, this group has been mostly ignored by organisations citing “lack of experience” as a scape goat. It is important for a manager to know how to manage workplace age diversity since all businesses need the input of both the old and the young worker’s group to achieve an optimal business outcome. Conversely it was argued by (McGregor & Gray, 2002; Roberson & Kulik, 2007) that older workforce abilities is not fully utilized by the companies because of a wrong stereotype and impression that they lack motivation, have more health related issues, are inflexible, costly, and less integrated with new technology and change than the younger workers.

Ethnic or racial diversity is referred to the ethnic or racial background of a person. As a matter of fact, ethnic factor in the labor force is increasingly gaining recognition, particularly in the US; Afro-Americans, Asian-Americans descent, and the Mexican-Americans. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016), these minority groups comprise 30 percent of the US workforce and that there is a high possibility that the group will make up to 40 percent by 2025. Working with a racially diverse organisation can be challenging, and therefore manager of these types of companies have to develop intelligent programs of managing racially diverse employees.

A culturally diversified workplace has employees with different social and cultural backgrounds (Stahl et al., 2010). Barak (2013) argue that there are dissimilarities between factions at social and cultural level. For instance, in the US the Asian culture covers Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and an American mix of the four cultures. As such, the focus ought to be on the accommodation and respect for cultural diversity through the appreciation of the different cultures in the company. Other people also argue that that cultural diversity may include several other elements, such as views, attitudes, and beliefs, so an organisation has to come up with ways that inspire employees to perform at work and leverage on cultural difference by creating an enabling environment that allows for optimal productivity.

According to Hofstede (2002) there are 5 dimensions of national cultures due to which people belonging to different national cultures would be different based on these dimensions. These dimensions are namely; short-term versus long-term orientation, collectivism versus individualism, femininity versus masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance.

Martin (2014) had identified that the cultural diversity can have positive as well as negative impacts on the workplace of an organisation, depending upon how well or worse it is managed by the organisation. The difficulty in achieving group harmony, group conflicts, and decreased productivity are the negative outcomes of cultural diversity, while variety of experiences, knowledge, resources, and ability to reach foreign customers are the positive outcomes of cultural diversity.

Elsaid (2012) found that workplace diversity based on gender and education can positively and significantly impact the workforce performance, however the workplace diversity based on age does not significantly impact the workforce performance.  It was suggested by Martin (2014) that the kind of impact which the cultural diversity would bring is based on the managers’ ability to manage cultural diversity. The top management can enhance the positive impacts of cultural diversity and overcome the negatives impacts of cultural diversity by implementing strategic planning.

Konrad (2006) reports that 55 per cent of the labour force in the UK has a university degree and majority of individuals have highly specialised jobs, which leads to a large incidence of retrenchment. As most of the vacancies have been filled with a highly educated workforce who have the required experience so most entry level workers with higher education levels work in menial positions. Such kind of scenario might leave new workers disillusioned and frustrated, and this may negatively affect productivity. Managers, therefore, need to have the necessary knowledge of how to deal with education diversity at the workplace to achieve maximum business results.

Internal Dimensions

Values can be referred to as individual’s preferences and their outcome are manifested in a person’s knowledge of the wrong or right behaviours, for instance, handling people with respect and dignity they deserve and embracing equal rights for all. An employee’s values can influence his/her personality and behaviour in a workplace. When an organisation handles some staff unequally, this might lead to employee tension which might affect productivity. According to Morgan & Várdy (2009) learning different beliefs and values of individuals, may lead to difficulty in transforming behaviours. As a matter of fact, diversity in values may result in conflict concerning goals, leading to an adverse impact on an organisation performance. Thus, managing diversity of values in a business can go a long way to maximise the positive aspects while minimising the negative ones.

A trend typifies a stereotype towards someone or something. Grivastava & Kleiner (2015) confirmed that there is a strong link between behaviour and attitudes at work. Thus, the non-positive stereotype harboured by a worker can lead to deterioration in the level of satisfaction among the rest of the employees. The business performance can be mirrored by the mental well-being of the workforce. Hence, one of the primary responsibilities of the administrators is to have knowledge on the direction to discern multidirectional patterns emanating from the variegated workforce. This will help in mitigating the adverse impact on the organisation.

Some of the personal attributes of an individual include ability to cooperate, flexibility, motivation, actions, and behaviour at work. Diverse labour force embodies a variety of personality traits, so the managers could leverage on qualities which positively contribute toward organisational goals. For instance, employees who are motivated by job satisfaction can be expected to offer motivations to their weak personality counterparts. Morgan & Várdy (2009) claims that personality in work place impacts on organisational performance. One would, therefore, say that managers should strive to ensure that the different employee personalities are harnessed to improve performance.

Diversity Management Concept

Diversity management can be perceived as the practice of an organization, directing and applying all the managerial tools for creating an enabling workplace environment, in which all heterogonous staff regardless of their differences or similarities can effectively contribute to organisational productivity. Studies (Yang & Konrad 2011; Bunderson & Sutcliffe 2002; Harrison & Klein 2007) report that unmanaged diversity reduces organisational performance. However, diversity is an unavoidable reality of the modern workplace. It was argued by Erasmus (2007) if diversity not properly managed then it can result in uncertainty and conflict between the employees and the management. It takes a well-organised management team to produce best business outcome from heterogeneous workers.

Page (2007) maintains that there had been a fundamental flaw in most of the previous works done by scholars of diversity management. Page claims that researchers assume that the target organisations knew how to properly practice diversity management to enhance organisational outcome. The challenge is that it was not until recently, that the tools required implementing proper diversity management had been available. Page (2007) posits that to ensure that organisational leaders are well equipped with this knowledge future studies should focus on the elements managers need to know to consistently implement proper employee management.

While reviewing the past literature related with the diversity management models it was found by Alcázar, Fernández, and Gardey (2013) that the existing strategic HRM models and literature for diversity management are undeveloped. It was suggested that a holistic strategy for human resource transformation is required to be able to effectively manage workforce diversity such as cross‐cultural diversities.

Impact of Workforce Diversity on Performance

Various studies have been conducted in the past regarding the impact of workforce diversity on effective performance of employees or organisation around the world. To review the empirical evidence regarding the impact of workforce diversity on performance of employees or organisation various researches were reviewed. However contradicting evidences are found regarding the impact of workforce diversity on performance.

A research was conducted using by Joseph and Selvaraj (2015) to determine how employees’ performance can be impacted by the workplace diversity. The three variables namely; ethnicity, gender, and age were used as a measure of workforce diversity. Survey questionnaire was used to collect primary data from employees of companies in Singapore. Cronbach’s alpha value was used to test the reliability of the questionnaire and SPSS was employed to analyse the impact of these three sub-variables of workplace diversity on employees’ performance. Based on the results ethnicity, gender, and age were found to have insignificant impact on employees’ performance. It was evident that if workforce diversity is not managed properly then it is likely to result in negative outcomes.

Rizwan, Khan, Nadeem, and Abbas (2016) had performed a study to determine how diversity at workplace can impact the performance of employees. In this study the randomly selected employees from Pakistani banks had participated. The educational background, ethnicity, age, and gender were used as measures of workforce diversity. Based on the results of regression analysis at 95% confidence level it was found that the diversity at workplace in terms of; educational background, ethnicity, age, and gender have significant positive impact on performance of employees. It was concluded the employees’ performance improves when variety of employees based on; educational background, ethnicity, age, and gender are present amongst the workforce.

It was suggested by Algahtani (2013) that workforce diversity based on ethnical differences can enable teams to have increased performance. However to have an increased performance it is necessary that the teams has already learnt to avoid conflicts while utilizing their dissimilarity in a productive manner. A contradicting finding was suggested by Jackson, Joshi, and Erhardt (2003), as according to them the groups with diversified members leads to poor performance than those groups where members have similarities. Besides the main challenge that management scholars are trying to tackle in organisational heterogeneity research is to have knowledge about the effect of diversity as a feature of social systems (Jackson et al. 2003).

The claim that workforce diversity has positive impact on performance of organisation was also analyzed by Bergen, Soper, and Parnell (2005). To test the relationship of diversity with performance the results of the organisations with diversified workforce was compared with that of the organisations with homogenous workforce. The results suggested that the organisations with diversified workforce have better performance than the organisations with homogenous workforce. Based on the results it was concluded that workforce diversity can help an organisation in achieving economic success.

In a recent research the impact of diversified workforce on perceived performance of organisations was analysed by Kundu and Mor (2017) using Indian IT sector. It was found that the perceived performance of organisations is positively impacted by the perception of gender based workforce diversity. If employees perceive an organisation to promote gender diversity then the performance of organisations is likely to improve. While highlighting the importance of having workforce diversity for organisation it was stressed by Saxena (2014) that managing the diversity is a bigger challenge due to the fact that employees tend not to disassociate from their views regarding their religion, culture, social class and so on. However it can be an organisational strength and can help in increasing productivity if this diversity is managed properly.

According to Jayne & Dipboye (2004), due to that fact that current research indicates that diversity can impact an organisation’s goal in both negative and positive ways, diversity management studies is mainly centered on pinpointing the scenarios under which the possible advantages of heterogeneity can best be leveraged on while at the same time mitigating the negative impacts. Kulik (2014) argues that the effects of workplace diversity nevertheless seem to be not quite clear. However, the effects have been classified by modern research scholars into four types of groups; cognitive, affective, communicative and symbolic (Bostrom 1970).

The affective effects mainly involve sense of belonging, discrimination, social perception and integration. For instance working with gender or ethnically diversified organisations seems to come with negative emotions among staff. To explain better explain this effect, the diversity research publications consider the issue of ‘homophily’ (Gilbert et al. 1999). This concept refers to the fact that individuals are mostly fascinated by those who look like them and are more probable to interact with them. This phenomenon makes social integration in a heterogeneous workforce more difficult(Gilbert et al. 1999). Other scholars (Bunderson & Sutcliffe 2002; Yang & Konrad 2011; Harrison & Klein 2007) have, however, reported that the negative emotions could diminish over time.

The second effect is the cognitive effect, which can be defined as the capacity of a group to integrate information, process it, act on it and arrive at conclusions (Milliken & Martins 1996). The cognitive diversity of heterogeneous teams involves several dissimilar views that can result in creativity (Agrawal 2012). This author also argues that the quality of the decisions made can also be enhanced when cultural minorities give more opposing counter-arguments, leading to the better grounding of the ultimate decision.

The symbolic effects are the third group of effects. A variegated staff can represent a symbol of a socially equitable organisation for concerned parties both outside and within the organisation. This gives an organisation more legitimacy, projecting an image that the organisation offers equal chances (Cuninngham & Sartore 2005) and competitive candidates are usually attracted to such institutions.

The fourth class of effects pointed out by Milliken & Martins (1996) comprises the communicative effects. Communication forms within a diversified group are in most cases formal and infrequent. On the other hand, communication with individuals from outside the team is more regular and can establish the basis for actualising group decisions.

 

METHODOLOGY

Introduction

In this chapter the research design, research method, data collection process, data analysis technique and ethical issues which were employed to complete this study are discussed.

Research Design

The research design which was selected in this study was exploratory research. The exploratory research design permits researchers to complete a research only with the help of review of the past literature. This present study was intended to be completed based on the past literature only therefore it was appropriate to employ exploratory research to conduct this study. The past literature was explored and reviewed to form literature survey on the basis of which the research objectives and the research questions were addressed. (Creswell, 2003)

Research Method

A research method can be seen as a structured plan created by the researcher(s) to seek answers for research problems in an objective, systematic, lawful, consistent, precise and cost-effective manner (Davidson, 2004). It involves the organisation of the study method to be applied for secondary and primary research, the identification of study population, procedure for sampling and data gathering and ultimately data analysis. Conducting a research can be understood as carrying out an examination to obtain knowledge or an idea to contribute toward an existing perception and information on a specific discipline (Kothari, Kumar, & Uusitalo, 2014). Davidson (2004) also defines research as the act of running an activity that adds to or generates a new knowledge or idea. However in this study secondary research method was utilised for exploring, collecting, and analyzing the past literature.

Data Collection Process

As the research method and design of this study were based on review of the past literature therefore secondary sources of literature were accessed through internet relating to workplace heterogeneity in organisations and its impact on performance. Various secondary data sources were searched on the internet which primarily includes; journals, research articles, website articles, books and other appropriate academic materials to obtain pertinent information on workplace diversity, employee management and the relationship between the two elements. Also, the objective of the literature survey through secondary study was to acquire a deeper knowledge of the research theme. It also helps in determining the scope and limitation of the study and identifying the areas in the literature where gape still exists. (Creswell, 2003)

To collect the secondary data subjective approach was employed, where the literature materials were collected from 1965 to 2017, giving time latitude of more than 50 years, however, more recent researches were focused more. Besides, the key search words that were used while searching for literature relevant to the study include; workforce diversity, organisational culture, workplace diversity, employee management, heterogeneous staff management, organisational diversity, and performance. A large number of sources were found during the search, while literature which was not relevant was decided to be excluded from the literature review. Moreover, the literature which were old but relevant such as Bostrom (1970) were still included in the review. Furthermore only credible literature sources were considered while formulating the literature review section.

Data Analysis Technique

The research technique that was utilised in analyzing the secondary data was content analysis, textual analysis and interpretivism. These techniques were used to analyse the qualitative information gained from the secondary research. Krippendorff (2004) defines content analysis as the strategy for analysing qualitative data by documentation of certain relations, links and implications in contents of literature material being utilised for the secondary study. On the other hand, textual analysis can be seen as a strategy for pinpointing shared themes within certain texts or the manifestation of particular texts in the literature (Kothari, Kumar, & Uusitalo, 2014). As per Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill (2012) the content analyses is the appropriate technique for analysis of past literature. Therefore to analyse the reviewed literature the relevant empirical literature was arranged and analysed in terms of similar contents and results. (Bryman & Bell, 2011).

Moreover, in view of the research aim and objectives the literature was interpreted using interpretivism. In interpretivism the reviewed literature is comprehend and interpreted by the researcher to explain what is understood by him/her. It involves subjective interpretation of the analysed literature. The results of all the relevant empirical literature were presented in tables for better understanding in the findings section. The contrasting evidences were identified and results were derived based on the frequency of the similar results found in the past empirical literature. In the empirical literature the effect of workforce diversity on performance of employees and the relationship between the two variables was sufficiently found. From two different perspectives the effect of workforce diversity on performance of employees was analysed to identify the main elements of the contrasting evidences. Besides, only credible empirical literature was considered in the analysis. (Creswell, 2003)

Ethical Considerations

Collection of credible sources and relevant information is the primary ethical aspect to consider in a research which is based on review of literature (Bryman & Bell, 2011). The present study was conducted entirely on the bases of past literature and so the creditability of this study was dependent upon the credibility of the past literature. Therefore in this study it was ensured to review and included only credible research articles from research journals. The researcher had paraphrased and interpreted the reviewed literature to acknowledge and successfully avoid plagiarism. Moreover in this connection the reviewed empirical literature was properly referenced using in-text citation in order to give credits to the real author of the referenced piece of literature.

FINDINGS

Based on the results of the past empirical literature the findings were obtained which are summarized in the following table. These findings are analysed and discussed in the next chapter.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

The analysis of the past empirical literature highlighted that the workforce diversity can be based on various differences namely; cross cultural (Childs, 2005; Elsaid, 2012); linguistics, race, ethnicity, ancestry, geographic location, religion, marital status, physical abilities, experience (Elsaid, 2012); ethnicity, and age (Rizwan et al., 2016; Elsaid, 2012); gender (Elsaid, 2012; Patrick & Kumar, 2012; Rizwan, et al., 2016); education (Elsaid, 2012; Rizwan, et al., 2016); cognitive differences (Agrawal, 2012).

Based on the reviewed empirical literature it was found that the workforce diversity can have a significant impact on the; performance of organisations (Bergen, Soper, & Parnell, 2005; Morgan & Várdy, 2009; Yang & Konrad, 2011; Saxena, 2014), performance of employees or workforce (Saxena, 2014; Martin, 2014; Joseph & Selvaraj, 2015), performance of teams (Algahtani, 2013; Dulaimi & Hariz, 2011), and performance of groups (Agrawal, 2012; Martin, 2014). However as per Rizwan, Khan, Nadeem, and Abbas (2016) the workforce diversity in terms of; ethnicity, and gender, and as per (Elsaid, 2012) the workplace diversity based on age were found to have insignificant impact on performance of employees. This indicates that based on the majority of the reviewed literature the workforce diversity was found to have significant impact on performance.

However from the analysis of the results of the past empirical literature it was identified that there are two contrasting perspectives present in the literature regarding the significant impact or effect of workforce diversity on performance. The first perspective suggested that the workforce diversity have positive impact on performance, while the other perspective highlighted that the workforce diversity have negative impact on performance. Besides, there was a another perspective found in the literature which stressed that the impact of workforce diversity on performance was unclear, as it can have positive as well as negative impact on organisation’s or employees’ performance.

Positive Impact of Workforce Diversity on Performance

It was found that the workplace diversity based on gender and education can positively and significantly impact the workforce performance (Elsaid, 2012). The diversity at workplace in terms of; educational background, ethnicity, age, and gender have significant positive impact on performance of employees (Joseph & Selvaraj, 2015). Workforce diversity based on ethnical differences can have a significant positive impact on performance of teams (Algahtani, 2013). Workforce diversity has positive impact on performance of organisation (Bergen, Soper, & Parnell, 2005). The organisations with diversified workforce have better performance than the organisations with homogenous workforce. Workforce diversity can help an organisation in achieving economic success (Bergen, Soper, & Parnell).

The workforce diversity in terms of cultural diversity can have positive impact on work performance in terms of; variety of experiences, knowledge, resources, and ability to reach foreign customers (Martin, 2014). The workplace diversity based on gender difference can significantly impact work performance in terms of absenteeism, where the absenteeism among women was found to be significantly higher than among their men counterparts (Patrick & Kumar, 2012). Therefore it can be summarized that the workforce diversity have positive impact on performance of employees in terms of improved productivity (Saxena, 2014), economic success of an organisation (Bergen, Soper & Parnell, 2005), variety of experiences, knowledge, resources, and ability to reach foreign customers (Martin, 2014).

Negative Impact of Workforce Diversity on Performance

Diversity in values may result in conflict concerning goals, leading to an adverse impact on an organisation performance (Morgan & Várdy, 2009). The workforce diversity in terms of cultural diversity can have negative impact on work performance in terms of; difficulty in achieving group harmony, group conflicts, and decreased productivity (Martin, 2014). Workforce diversity was found to be negatively related with the work performance in terms of efficiency, productivity and output (Dulaimi & Hariz, 2011). It can be summarized that the workforce diversity can have negative impact on the performance and the workplace in terms of; conflict concerning goals (Morgan & Várdy, 2009), difficulty in achieving group harmony, group conflicts, and decreased productivity (Martin, 2014); efficiency, productivity and output (Dulaimi & Hariz, 2011).

Unclear Impact of Workforce Diversity on Performance

The effects of workplace diversity seem to be unclear (Kulik, 2014). Managing the diversity is a bigger challenge due to the fact that employees tend not to disassociate from their views regarding their religion, culture, social class and so on. However it can be an organisational strength and can help in increasing productivity if this diversity is properly managed (Saxena, 2014). Cultural diversity can have positive as well as negative impacts on the workplace of an organisation, depending upon how well or worse it is managed by the organisation (Martin, 2014). The workplace diversity based on cognitive differences (heterogeneous teams) involves several dissimilar views that can result in creativity. Some of the challenges which can arise by having a diversified workforce are; interpersonal conflicts, personal biases, resistance of change, segment based communication networks, individual versus group interest, and lobbying (Agrawal, 2012).

A manager’s abilities in managing the diversity and utilizing it for positive outcomes can play a key role in addressing the negative impacts of workforce diversity. The impact which the cultural diversity would bring is based on the managers’ ability to manage cultural diversity. The top management can enhance the positive impacts of cultural diversity and overcome the negatives impacts of cultural diversity by implementing strategic planning (Martin, 2014). Managers need to have the necessary knowledge of how to deal with education diversity at the workplace to achieve maximum business results (Konrad, 2006).

Addressing or Overcoming Workforce Diversity

Individuals from different countries, religions, societies and cultures work together. Individuals from different countries, religions, societies and cultures tends to have dissimilar values, believes, way of socializing and doing work (Childs, 2005). Unmanaged diversity at work reduces organisational performance (Yang & Konrad, 2011). When such diversified individuals interact with each other it is possible for them to have conflict on certain issues therefore it is essential for the organisation to be able to address the individual differences so that workforce diversity can prove fruitful for the organisation rather than a drawback. Managing diversity of values in a business can go a long way to maximise the positive aspects while minimising the negative ones (Morgan & Várdy, 2009). To have an increased performance it is necessary that the teams have already learnt to avoid conflicts while utilizing their dissimilarity in a productive manner (Algahtani, 2013).

 

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Upon completion of this study all of the research objectives were addressed sufficiently. The first objective was to determine the benefits or drawbacks of having diversified workforce. Based on the research various benefits of having diversified workforce were identified. It can help in improving the performance of employees, teams, work groups and organisations. It can help an organisation in achieving economic success. Workforce diversity organisations enable organisations to have access to; variety of experiences, variety of knowledge, variety of resources, ability to reach foreign customers, and it can be an organisational strength to increase productivity.

The second objective was to find the effect of workforce diversity on performance of employees. It was found that the workforce diversity in terms of; gender, educational background, ethnicity, age, ethnics, culture, experiences, knowledge, and abilities have significant positive effect on performance of employees. One the other hand it was found that the workforce diversity for instance in terms of; values and culture can have significant negative effect on performance of employees. The negative effects of workforce diversity can result in conflict concerning goals, difficulty in achieving group harmony, group conflicts, decreased productivity, efficiency, and output. However, the workforce diversity in terms of; ethnicity, gender, and age, were found to have insignificant impact on performance of employees.

The third objective was to analyze the impact of workforce diversity on performance of managers. Limited evidence was found in the literature regarding the impact of workforce diversity on performance of managers therefore it is difficult to conclude anything regarding it. However it was found that a manager’s abilities in managing the diversity can play a key role in addressing the negative impacts of workforce diversity. Through strategic planning by top management can enhance the positive impacts of workforce diversity and overcome the negatives impacts.

The fourth objective was to study the findings obtained from the past literature to ascertain whether or not a relationship exists between the workforce diversity and performance of employees. Based on the majority of the reviewed empirical literatures the workforce diversity was found to have significant impact on performance, therefore it can be ascertained that relationship exists between the workforce diversity and performance of employees. However the workforce diversity can have positive as well as negative impact on performance of employees, depending upon how well or worse it is managed by the organisation. Besides, it can give rise to some challenges if workforce diversity is not properly managed, such as; interpersonal conflicts, personal biases, resistance of change, segment based communication networks, clash of interests, and lobbying.

The fifth objective was to make recommendations regarding the use of diversified workforce in an organisation for improving employees’ performance. Based on the findings of this study it is recommended to develop an organisational culture where diversified workforce is encouraged because most of the evidences indicates towards its positive impact on performance of employees. Workforce diversity can be based on various differences; cross cultural, linguistics, race, ethnicity, ancestry, geographic location, religion, marital status, physical abilities, cognitive abilities, work experience, ethnicity, age, gender, and education, therefore it is essential to manage it well because if diversity at work remains unmanaged it can reduce organisational performance. When diversified individuals interact with each other it is possible for them to create conflict therefore it is essential for the organisation to be able to address the workforce diversity.

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