The Effect of Workforce Diversity on Organizational Performance of Selected Firms in Nigeria

Abstract

Workforce diversity includes the differences and similarities of the employees. Organizational performance is the extent to which the organizational objectives and goals are being achieved. Most business organizations fail in Nigeria because galvanizing diverse workforce to work as a team has been ineffective in terms of policy, training, exposure and approach to specific and overall goals. This has made profitability index difficult to measure in Nigeria. The objectives of the paper are: To determine whether workforce diversity has a positive influence on customer related issues; and to ascertain the effect of education as a tool, on the management of workforce diversity to enhance high profitability index. Findings revealed that workforce diversity has a positive effect on customer related issues in an organisation. In addition, it is found that education as a tool could be effectively utilized in managing workforce diversity to enhance high profitability. Workforce Diversity has been identified as a tool to improved organizational performance and has been as old as the first organization in Nigeria right from the barter system era of the early 1750 and at the industrial revolution and scientific management periods of 1911 to the modern epoch. A combination of the use of secondary data, oral interview, and content analysis was adopted. A spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of 0.95 was obtained. Findings in line with the objectives revealed positive influence of workforce diversity on organizational performance of the selected organisations in Nigeria. Conclusion and recommendation was drawn along that regard.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n10p231