INTRODUCTION:

Organizations are becoming more employee centric nowadays and Managing Human Resources is becoming a major function in all the organizations. For attracting more profits and get the maximum out of employees companies invest a lot on their workforce. The current trend in among almost all the industries is that working together with a diverse pool of employees.

Diversity refers to various differences like age, gender, culture, ethnicity etc., Recruiting from a diverse workplace means recruiting a more qualified workforce. However, there are different challenges while employing a diverse pool of employees.

There are various debates that happen in an organization after investing on Workforce Diversity whether there is an impact on Workforce Diversity on Employee Performance.

This research has been carried out to find out the same. This research focuses on Age Diversity, Organizational Tenure Diversity, Cultural Diversity and all these factors are being measured with Employee Performance.

India is one of the most diverse countries in the world and Bengaluru being the most important IT destination for the country, the city aims to recruit the most talented and skilled workforce in the country. Thus, the study has been conducted on a sample size of 102 in various Bengaluru IT companies.

Figure 1: Factors this research focuses on

Employee performance:

The activities that are expected of an employee in an organization which are job related and the ability to measure how well the job is executed is Employee performance.

Gender Diversity:

Representing men, women and LGBT equally in the workplace is gender diversity. Most commonly, the terms refer to an equitable ratio of different genders.

Age Diversity:

The ability to treat different types of ages within an organization or business environment in a fair and equal manner is Age diversity.

Organizational Tenure Diversity:

There are frequent complaints in many organizations that the employees who have worked long time for the organization holds special importance and the new employees are not taken into account while decision making or problem solving. Managing experienced staffs and the fresh employees in an organization equally and in a fair manner is Organizational Tenure Diversity.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Ankitasaxena (2014) mentioned that Diversity is the co-existence of employees who are from different socio-cultural backgrounds within the Organization. Diversity refers to various cultural factors which includes gender, race, age, physical ability, ethnicity, colour etc., The broad definition of diversity refers to religion, age, disability, national origin, values, sexual orientation, ethnic culture, education, language, physical appearance, beliefs, lifestyle, and economic status

Robbins (2009) presents that our world is already globalized, different humans from different ethnic and cultural background works and interacts with each other in the organization. The present era of workforce does not work in an isolated location instead; they compete with the global market working the worldwide economy. More precisely, the workforce is willing to work in global environment with a more heterogeneous with all humans from different sex, culture, education, regions etc.,

Rao &Bagali (2014) Indian Information Technology (IT) industry needs talent from throughout the world. Around 30% to 32% of the female workforce has been recruited by IT organizations and it is the major recruiter of women workforce in India. Have compared diversity practices in Accenture, IBM, Infosys, Citi Bank India. All these organizations have well-structured Global diversity programs implemented successfully which leads to flexible work hours, equal opportunities in employment, Leadership commitments, Women diversity initiatives., discrimination-free and harassment-free work environment for all employees globally giving high-performance culture

Samuel brucerockson. Et al (2017) says that for the survival of any organization in the modern world, Diversity is very important and the management should analyse the benefits that can be derived from adopting a diverse workforce and should create the same environment.

White (2009) presents that Diversity of the workforce in organizations has its benefits but it also comes with its own disadvantages of workforce diversity. Many people are not comfortable and feel threatened by working with people of a different age, culture or sex. There is an increase in the cost of training, this increases the costs associated with programs, seminars and lectures that are given to promote diversity in the Organization. These kind of trainings are given to all levels of the staffs within organization. They teach their employees how to accept the ideas, thoughts of others, personalities etc.

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

There are many valuable studies that are made on Impact on workforce Diversity on Organizational Performance or to improve the leadership skills. Employees will feel happy if there is a positive impact on workforce diversity. On the other hand, they get saddened if the result of implementation of diversity in the organization is negative. Concentrating on workforce diversity impact on employee performance is mandatory. Hence, this research focuses on Workforce Diversity and its Impact on employee Performance.

Factors affecting workforce Diversity:

Language and Communication Barriers:

Miscommunication is one of the major issues that gives rise to the conflicts in the workplace that results in the confusion and low morale of the employee in the organization

Resistance to Change:

There are few employees who are hesitant to accept that the marketplace is changing and Diversity plays a major role in organizational development

Adaptability:

Some employees can accept the importance of workforce diversity in an organization but they find difficulties in accepting it

Willingness to learn:

There are some employees who avoids to learn from a diverse workforce and neglects the importance of it

Challenging Environment:

Some employees aren’t feeling safe about their job when they enter an even more challenging environment

Motivation:

Some employees feels inferior in a diverse workplace that results in low morale and low productivity

Research Findings:

By using the Reliability analysis, the scale was purified. Data analysis was done after collecting the data. It is concluded that, Organizational Tenure Diversity and Cultural Diversity have positive relationship with employee Performance, Age diversity has a negative relationship with employee performance and it is found that there are some minor issues rises when different age groups work together and Gender diversity does not have relationship with employee performance and there are some inequalities when different genders work together in the organization.

Hypotheses:

H1 - There is no relationship between Gender Diversity and Employee performance

H2 - There is a negative relationship between Age Diversity and Employee Performance

H3 – There is a positive relationship between Cultural Diversity and Employee Performance

H4 – There is a positive relationship between Organisational Tenure Diversity and Employee Performance

Suggestions:

While the organizations invest on workforce diversity, it should also set up a mechanism to manage and administer a diverse workforce in the organization effectively.  Organizations should work hard on creating an environment, which supports workforce diversity in a positive way. Males, Females, LGBTQ should be treated in equal and fair manner. There must be no gender bias at the time of promotions or performance appraisal.

Career paths should be designed exclusively for the female employees of the organization.  Experience and Merits of an employee who is newly joined should be given due importance and his date of joining must not be considered as the one and only criteria at the time of problem solving and decision making.  There must be no preconceived and fixed notions about Gender, Culture and age of a person at the time of interviews and recruitment. Organizations have to give an equal opportunity to each and every candidate who is deserving.

Age diversity, Cultural Diversity, Organizational tenure diversity evidently has an impact on employee performance and so the employees with different age groups, with different organizational tenure, different cultural background when working together, have to be provided a suitable and healthy working environment. The conflicts and issues of them must be handled properly, which makes the impact on employee performance turns out to be positive.

CONCLUSION:

In the current research an effort was made to study the impact of workforce diversity on employee performance in IT industry in Bengaluru. Through personal observations, primary data analysis and secondary data analysis, the following things have been concluded.

After conducting extensive literature review, Diversity factors were identified under workforce diversity and a set of variables were identified to measure each factor. The scale was purified through reliability analysis and then Exploratory factor analysis was used through SPSS to measure the statistical relationship between the factors and variables. By conducting EFA, it was proved that the factors and variables are related and that the variables are useful to measure their respective factor. The following factors were identified: Age Diversity, Gender Diversity, Organizational Tenure Diversity and Cultural Diversity. The impact of these diversity factors had to be measured on employee performance and so one more factor identified was Employee Performance.

Workforce diversity is welcomed today across the organizations and a lot of investment have been done by the organizations to have a diverse workforce on board. However, this does not always turn out to be a good decision. The organizations sometimes ignore the issues that arise out of workforce diversity and so the diverse workforce does not give the desired results and in fact reduces the efficiency of the employee as well as the organization.

If the issues arising out of diversity are handled well, resolved cautiously and if the diverse workforce is managed properly, then diversity on board will definitely prove to be one of the biggest strengths of the organization. To study various diversity issues and understand and extract the opinion of the same from employees these issues were added in the questionnaire as variables. After receiving the opinion of the employees on diversity issues and conducting data analysis through SPSS software it was concluded that there are some minor issues that arise out when different aged employees work together, There is some sort of inequality between male and female employees and this is often reflected at the time of performance appraisal as well as promotions, Seniority is given importance as compared to newly joined employees, Most of the decisions are taken by keeping only senior employees in loop, Seniority (number of years spent in the organization) is given more weightage in most of the organizations. Employees from different cultural backgrounds have not been facing serious diversity issues because of their culture. After conducting data analysis by using statistical tools, it was concluded that employees perceive that working with a diverse work group helps them increase their performance.

REFERENCES:

1. Ankita saxena (2014)-“Work force Diversity – A key to Increase Productivity”, Public Personnel Management”, 25(3), pp. 351-367

2. Robbins (2009)– “Workforce Diversity and its Disadvantages” Advances in Developing Human Resources, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 98-103

3. Rao & Bagali (2014). Impact of employee motivation on performance. European journal of Business and management, 6 (23)

4. Samuel brucerockson. et al (2017) Critical Review Of Literature On Workforce Diversity. African Journal of Business Management, 72-76

5. White (2009). Valuing diversity: a tale of two organizations. Academy of Management Executive. 14 (1), 93–105

Received on 04.09.2019 Modified on 19.11.2019

Asian Journal of Management. 2019; 10(4):385-388.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2019.00058.1