THE EFFECT OF WORKFORCE DIVERSITY ON THE PERFORMANCE OF AN ORGANIZATION
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1Â Â Â Â Â Â Background to the Study
It is evident that the advances in art, science and technology have made it possible for global economy to bring the people of the world closer together than we can ever think of. As a result of this, organisations, educational systems and other entities are now embarking on the ways to better serve their constituents. This means, ability of organisations to be able to attract and retain workers based on merit. The ability of organizations to formulate, develop and make use of the necessary policies and procedures in doing this will make it possible for such organisations to have competitive advantage ahead of their counterparts and increase their effectiveness. However, to achieve success and maintain a competitive advantage, we must be able to draw on the most important resource like the skills of the workforce. As a result of the increase in diversity in the workforce, there is the need for organisations to expand their outlook and use creative strategies to achieve better organizational performance. This means, employees must be critically examined in the provision of this resource. This study investigates effect of workforce diversity on the performance of an organization in Nigeria.
Work diversity simply means the co-existence of people from various socio-cultural backgrounds that exists in the industry. Diversity consists of factors like race, culture, gender, age, colour, physical ability, ethnicity, sex and so on (Kundu and Turan, 1999). Diversity incorporates all groups of people irrespective of their levels in the industry. Diversity is made up of organizational culture whereby each employee can make real his or her career aspirations and goals without being limited by sex, race, nationality, religion, or other factors that have nothing to do with performance (Bryan, 1999). Diversity management refers to enabling diverse work to perform its full potential in an equitable work environment where no one has an advantage or disadvantage (Torres and Bruxelles, 1992). However, diversity management has been challenging employers for quite some times now, particularly in the last 20 years, organisations have started coming to realization of the differences in gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, age and other factors more.
In addition, empirical evidence underlines that organisations that have working effective diversity management look for benefit through bottom line returns. It must be noted that sharing of information and constructive task-based conflict management are the core factors in value in diversity argument. Work diversity management is aimed at the recognition of differences as positive features of an organization, instead of problems to be solved (Thompson 1997). McLeod, Lobel and Cox (1996) and Wilson and Iles (1999) revealed that a diverse workforce has a better-quality solution to brainstorming tasks, shows more incorporated habit, in relation to homogenous groups, and can increase organizational efficiency, effectiveness and profitability. However, utilization of the skills and potential of all employees, managing diversity to the full can effectively contribute to the success of the organisation by enabling access to a changing marketplace by mirroring increasing diverse markets (Cox and Blake, 1991; Iles 1995; Gardenswartz and Rowe, 1998) and positively change corporate image (Kandola, 1995). This reveals the reason why, valuing diversity can be an origin of competitive advantage, increasing the quality of industrial life and definitely be good for better business performance (Cassell, 1996). The popularity of the diversity approach emerged from these positive arguments.
However, scholars have revealed that the potential benefits will not become real as a result of greater workplace diversity. Thomas (1990) emphasized that corporate competence counts more than ever, and today’s non-hierarchical, flexible, collaborative management brings an increase in tolerance for individuality. Past research has concluded that managers should actively manage and value diversity. (Agocs and Burr 1996; Liff and Wajcman, 1996; Storey 1999) opined that diversity management can give support for essential industrial development initiatives if designed and executed accordingly. Managing diversity has its origins in the USA (Kandola and Fullerton 1994), but has now become a strategic business issue for nearly all organizations worldwide (Wilson and Iles, 1999).
There are two approaches for organisations that aim to take global diversity; these approaches solely depend on their organizational structure and culture. The first approach is a multi-country approach, where people in various locations develop and implement programmes and initiatives. This model is commonly carried out by much decentralized organisations which can come with a lot of benefits because local leaders take ownership of the initiatives. These leaders look for detailed local knowledge of traditions, customs, laws and cultural issues that require to be addressed. Local commitment tends to be higher in experiencing this approach. On the contrary, the lack of overarching and corporate guidance may mean unsuitable levels of work across locations. Typically, organisations that are using this approach do not have committed and dedicated global diversity staff, but rather personnel that are working on diversity in their spare time. A second approach which is more suitable for more centralized organizations is a top-down approach where diversity is tailored into all business units from the corporate level. Consistence in message is sure for organisations that are experiencing this approach because it offers assistance with development and implementation of programs. It must be understood that care must be taken to ensure that local commitment is implemented. (MacGillivray and Golden, 2007).
Conclusively, Nigeria, the most populous country in the continent of Africa with more than one hundred and seventy populations of which more than half of the population are in working age bracket, managers and employers of work organizations are usually faced with a critical problem of the management of diversity in the work place. Such a nation with various ethnic backgrounds and languages, as well as diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, work diversity must be of utmost importance to managers and employers as it will be important to understand the reasons why employees behave towards each other as individuals and as groups in the way they in their duty posts and how these behaviours will affect the overall productivity of the organizations; the opportunities as well as the challenge of work diversity for organizations and the strategies the employers and managers can employ to make sure that corporate performance reaches the optimum and remains there. Diversity management issues abound in organizations and it is paramount that they are proactively investigated and appropriately addressed. It is on this basis that this study aims to investigate work diversity management; comparative analysis of public and private sector in Nigeria.
1.2Â Â Â Â Â Â Statement of the Problem
