The effect of workforce diversity on employee performance.

Abstract

ABSTRACT The population of South Africa has increased significantly in recent years due to the influx of people from the neighbouring countries. South Africa, therefore, has diverse skilled and innovative workforce at its disposal. Workforce diversity has the benefits of adding strategic value to organisation‟s operations and capabilities. To ensure that every citizen is accommodated, the workplace is expected to be representative of the demographics of the country. The obvious diversity demographic variables visible through the workforce are age, gender, ethnicity and education background. This study investigates these workforce diversity variables to ascertain the extent to which these variables have an impact on employee performance. The purpose of conducting the study on employee diversity is to determine the elements of diversity which are considered important during the recruitment process in order to improve employee performance in government departments. Data was collected from 150 Stats SA employees through convenience sampling techniques. The data collected from respondents was analysed with the utilisation of the SPSS version 20.0. According to this study, the results reveal that there is a significant statistical correlation between employee performance and diversity variables like age, ethnicity and education background, with the exception of gender variable at 0.01 level of significance. Similar studies supported the findings of this study and found no relationship between gender and employee performance. Key Words: organisational performance; ethnicity; gender; age.