DIVERSITY TRAINING

Corporation Return on Investment (ROI) On Diversity Training

Corporation Return on Investment (ROI) On Diversity Training

Introduction

Managing diversity is often understood as the state of increased presence of employees coming from different nationalities, sex and race groups (Benschop 2001). The management policies of human resources are then to recruit and retain more people from underrepresented groups. If companies want to take full advantage of benefits of diversity in their workforce, it is essential that they go beyond this strictly egalitarian vision following the logic of affirmative action policies. This paper will explore the trends in diversity training as they relate to improving the organizational financial performance. While promoting diversity through training has been a growing practice amongst most leading companies, issues like return on investment from such training are still not widely studied. This research investigates how useful it is to measure the return on investment from diversity training. The research will also determine if it is worth for a corporation to have diversity training programs in the absence of objective means to measure the financial contribution from diversity training.

Discussion

Management of diversity should be seen as the ability of a firm to employ a heterogeneous workforce by using it to its full potential in an equitable work environment where any member or group is advantaged or disadvantaged. Cascio refers to diversity in terms of age, sex and "culture" within the meaning of origin (Cascio 2006). Thomas (2008) proposes an original definition of diversity, less simplistic, but also less operational. In his view, diversity should be understood as "Perspectives and different approaches work as members of groups with identities can make different (Thomas 2008).” Most companies, however, refer to previous definitions that make the management of diversity more evident since the diversity is measured from the representation of readily identifiable groups.

At a time when competition is intense and where the stresses are exerted on public spending, the argument for diversity should focus on "results". For private sector organizations, the primary diversity issues relate to the benefit and cost effectiveness for the public sector, and its efficiency in terms of delivery of services to all members of society. To be sensitive to the needs of all stakeholders, companies must be able to plan and develop products and services attractive to a market. Because consumers are increasingly diverse, competing in the new global economy requires that the production takes place by a diverse class of workers. To hire the best people, and to provide the necessary skills and achieve high levels of performance and productivity of the workforce, diversity is a prerequisite (Jackson, Joshi and Erhardt 2003). Diversity is also a prerequisite to solve problems creatively, get new approaches and new strategic views, and enjoy it. To be perceived as an industry aware of its responsibilities, to attract the necessary investments and to obtain excellent results (net), diversity is a prerequisite.

Diversity in the workplace can provide extraordinary benefits to organizations. To get all the benefits in terms of organizational effectiveness, productivity and competitiveness, diversity, however, must be carefully managed ...