diversity impact on the employee performance
Introduction
Employee diversity has become a ubiquitous managerial strategy across many organizations around the globe. It refers to the intentional employment of a workforce that is made up of employees with different characteristics including sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, race, education, and age, among other attributes (Cletus et al. 43). In the United States, workplace diversity has shown an improvement in the last decade or so. However, there are still some issues surrounding this organizational aspect. Indeed, diversity is being practiced across the states of the US. However, as per Nadarajah, Atif, and Gull (pp. 10-15), about 70% of the entire American workforce is composed of white people, followed by Hispanics or Latino with about 17%, and blacks being about 13%. Besides, companies whose leadership and executive teams are ethnically and racially diverse are likelier to outperform those with poor or no diversity financially-wise. Further, 67% of all job seekers in the United States have employee diversity as a priority. 50% of the employed Americans also want their employers to invest more in diversity and inclusion. Equally, Nadarajah, Atif, and Gull assert that diversity is associated with a higher cash flow per employee; around 2.3 times, than companies with monolithic work environments.
In this regard, workplace diversity is unquestionably a great strategy for improving overall organizational performance. However, although the United States organizations have shown an improvement in fostering diversity, there still is a need to invest more. This is necessary due to the low inclusion of the minority groups in its overall workforce. This research, therefore, intends to explore the way employee diversity improves organizational performance through heightening employee creativity and innovativeness. It intends to focus on the United States' organizational diversity trends and their respective innovative behaviors. The research is anticipated to reveal the trends of workplace diversity in the US, the several implications that diversity has on organizational performance, and the best ways for practicing diversity for its high-notch profitability. This will leave all the organizations across the US and the entire world with bolstered knowledge of workplace diversity, a thing that will improve overall employee diversity and inclusion in organizations, hence, organizations' productivity.
Overview of the Situation
The issue of employee performance has been analyzed in many studies. Several kinds of research have revealed many factors that are connected to employee performance. Undoubtedly, employee performance is one the most bolster means for bolstering organizational productivity. The most imperative factors that impact the level of employee performance include work motivation, work environment, organizational culture, leadership, and competence (Nguyen, Yandi, and Mahaputra, p. 657). All these factors are interrelated. The article by Nguyen, Yandi, and Mahaputra explains that for high-notch employee productivity, impeccable strategies that bolden the aforementioned aspects need to be inaugurated.
Work motivation influences employee performance. It refers to the inbuild glee, by an employee, to render quality services for the intended clients' unmatched satisfaction (Nguyen, Yandi, and Mahaputra, p. 61). In this view, organizations are, quite often, so much focused on ensuring that employees are all-time motivated. Owoyele engaged in an analysis of the several factors that affect employee motivation. He intimates that work motivation is affected by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Autonomy and recognition are the most impactful intrinsic factors of work motivation. Consequently, he asserts that job security and financial incentives are the extrinsic factors that also aid in building employee motivation (pp. 31-32).
Work environment and organizational culture are, equally, the other factors that determine the level of employee performance. The contemporary business environment benefits from aspects like technological advances and globalization. Organizations currently have realized the power of embracing diversity. People from different cultural and even racial backgrounds currently work in the same organizations. Organizational culture and environment are the aspects that define the values, visions, beliefs, and expectations that an organization owns. Nguyen, Yandi, and Mahaputra posit that organizational performance is largely affected by these factors (p. 51). Karzilius, Bucker, and Beerlage (p. 16), on the other hand, explore the factors that shape organizational culture and environment. They strictly analyze the factors that determine the rate of fostering diversity. They start by explaining that organizations' that posit employee diversity outweigh homogenous organizations in innovativeness, reputational wellness, and overall employee performance (p. 14). They, further, explore the element of multiculturalism. The authors confirm that multicultural organizational culture is entirely dependent on an organization's level of cultural intelligence (p. 16). They explain cultural intelligence as the bold ability to embrace employee differences across all socio-cultural facets. An organization that owns edge-cutting cultural intelligence own stronger abilities to maintain a sustainable diverse workforce (p. 17).
The aspect of organizational culture and multiculturalism brings the topic of employee diversity. Employee diversity has been explored in the way it impacts employee performance from a myriad of perspectives. Gomez and Bernet identify the several benefits attached to employee diversity. In their article, they analyze diversity, financial performance, and patient health outcomes since 1999. They establish that employee diversity is associated with improved financial performance and quality services. The article further discloses that patients that are served by a diverse team portray better health outcomes than those served by homogenous teams (p. 85). Besides, employee diversity is linked to an organization's flexibility to change. The article confirms that employee diversity ameliorates the frictions associated with organizational change management (p. 86). Brimhall and Moh Barak, likewise, delve into a strict analysis of the implication of employee diversity. They find out that employee diversity heightens employee innovativeness capacities, sparks quality employee services, and boldens job satisfaction (p. 481).
Different sources confirm that employee diversity is an impeccable strategy for boosting employee performance. However, Smith-Doerr, Alegria, and Sacco explain how diversity can fail to give all its benefits if it is ineffectively adopted. This is where the importance of organizational leadership comes into play. Every organization's management should ensure that it capitalizes on all kinds of diversity. Smith-Doerr, Alegria, and Sacco confess that representational diversity is necessary, however, it does not yield all the benefits of diversity. They instead suggest that all the minority employees should be included in the respective organizational partaking to supplement the representational diversity approach for full optimization of all the benefits of employee diversity (p. 137). Page (p. 26), in the same line, reiterates the way employee diversity is a sure means of building a productive workforce. He, in his book, emphasizes the importance of utilizing employees' different thinking abilities. He confirms that a diverse team, quite often, outperforms homogenous teams in handling complex tasks (p. 25). He sums up all the benefits contained in the employee diversity strategy as diversity bonus; innovativeness, creativity, reputational wellness, proper problem resolution, and impeccable business trends prediction (p. 27).
Conclusion
Employee performance is affected by many things. It is largely related to job satisfaction, competence, work environment, and organizational culture. In this way, the strategy that has been explained to grow all the elements affecting employee performance is employee diversity. Employee diversity is a strategy that enhances a workforce to achieve all diversity bonuses: effective problem resolution, creativity, innovativeness, job satisfaction, reputation, and impeccable future projections. In the United States, several organizations have invested in employee diversity. However, the inclusion of minority groups is still low. Sources explain that several procedures have to be observed when investing in diversity for an organization to yield all the benefits of diversity. Both representation diversity and inclusion of the minority employees are necessary for the high-notch optimization of the employee diversity benefits. In the United States, employee diversity posits the flaw of an irrational exclusion of minority groups. In this regard, it is high time that United States organizations stick to the diversity element of inclusivity for them to benefit from this managerial technique.
Works Cited