Effect Of Workplace Diversity On Employees’ Performance

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Diversity issues have drawn much concern to most organizations and have spurred a lot of debate on its benefits as well as the challenges that come with the acceptance of the same. Due to globalization, improved educational systems and technological advancements that have brought diverse people together, many organizations that strive to attract and retain highly productive workforce must encourage workforce diversity (Onyango & Oluoch, 2019). The desire to gain competitive advantage, build organizations reputation and to have a wide range of knowledge and skills to enhance performance has made diversity to be widely utilized as an important organizations resource (Onyango, et al., 2019). They explained that people are diverse in ways that can be seen or unseen through genetically orientation, religious beliefs and by their position in the society. The differences therefore create a pool of rich knowledge and skills required to ensure good performance which can be created by recruiting people from diverse backgrounds. According to Onyango, et al. (2019) organizations that embrace workforce diversity are highly profitable and productive in nature. Workforce diversity encompasses people from different backgrounds coming together to achieve the goals of an organization. Workplace diversity strives to utilize the employee diverse strengths and weaknesses irrespective of their demographic characteristics to ensure success within the organization (Andoh, Ghansah, Okogun-Odompley & Benuwa, 2019). Workforce diversity seeks to address the different knowledge, skills and abilities that every employee contributes so as to achieve performance. To achieve organizational success, there must be a well-managed diversity in the workplace (Onyango, et al., 2019). Diversity therefore includes all the individuals at the work place who are different irrespective of their gender, religion, education and ethnicity. Andoh, et al., (2019), see workplace diversity as intergroup relations, which play out alongside one another in communication and interaction. It develops a host of complexities related to diversity.

However, Andoh, et al., (2019) further clarified that workforce diversity based on age, gender and ethnicity cannot be viewed in a similar way as workforce diversity that is based on organizational roles and individual aptitudes. They were of the opinion that managing a diverse workforce is complicated and thus needs organizations’ total attention in terms of implementing proper and clear practices that will enhance the performance of the organization in the short and long term. In addition, the dysfunctional workforce diversity management arises due to lack of communication between management and employees on how workforce diversity benefits the organization. Managers within organizations are responsible for the success of workforce diversity policies by creating an effective diversity policy that ensures recognition, and response to all differences in order to ensure the retention of talented employees, because when diversity is not properly managed, there will be organizational problems such as high turnover and communication difficulties, and conflicts among workforce, which negatively affects the productivity of the organization and achieve its goals. The workforce diversity indicates a homogenous mix of workforce which is diverse in terms of gender, age, nationality and educational background (Mohammad, 2019). The workforce diversity affects the management practices and policies of the organization as the characteristics of the workforce influence the way they think and interact with events and activities.

Organization always strives to enhance the productivity of its worker by valuing and appreciating their diverse contribution toward achievement of goals. Diversity may be referred as admitting, appreciating, understanding, recognizing, valuing, and enjoying divergence among worker (Ahmad & Rahman, 2019). Workplace diversity states specific similarities and differences of the employees. It consists of age, working environment, gender, perceptions, ethnicity, marital status, region, work experience, sexual alignment, income, nationality with each other, which support to organizational essential values (Ahmad & Rahman, 2019). Therefore, constructive and destructive impact of workplace diversity is connected with the performance of worker in any enterprise.

Diversity in culture, religion, ethnicity, education, sex etc., in workplace is unavoidable fact and no manager can afford to ignore it in the organizational life. Organization always strives to attain and maintain best human talent. Individuals enter in the organization with unique characteristics and they perceived the world through these diverse attributes. Demographic composition of the Nigeria’s population has dramatically changed in last two decades. Rural population migrated to urban sites in search of job. They belong to different socio-cultural back ground. These demographic changes present a new set of challenges for the management particularly in public sector organizations. In case organization ignores the management of workplace diversity, it will eliminate trust, mutual understanding, co-operation and respect amongst employees which adversely affect employees’ performance.

• Statement of the Problem

Just like any other organization, banks are not exceptional in challenges facing its human resource derived from diverse backgrounds in order to ensure good performance. Performance issues related to the delay in handling customer requests which had strained service delivery that has led to frequent customer complains. The contributory factor to the performance of the organization is the workforce that provides a strong basis to the achievement. From the studies there is a lot of inconsistencies on the extent to which the demographic variables affect organizational performance.

Workforce diversity has been argued as previously to have a contribution to the performance of organizations. This is because a diverse workforce provides a great pool of knowledge skills and experience that when properly utilized can improve organizational performance. Recognizing workforce diversity is crucial so as to ensure competition within the environment (Onyango, et al., 2019). Previous studies done locally on workforce diversity and organizational performance for instance Busolo, (2017) found out that age, gender and ethnicity were significant factors in determining organizational performance in order to obtain competitive edge and workforce sustainability.

Further that, past researches only focused on ethnicity and culture as the only variables that affect performance. These past studies only looked at governmental institutions within a different geographical region and setting and therefore their performance was measured to public institution, thereby, leaving a gap that this study seeks to fill by finding out how workforce diversity affects the performance of employees in selected Deposit Money Banks in Ilaro, Ogun state.