The Effects of Work Force Diversity on Employee Performance in Singapore Organisations

Abstract

Workforce diversity has been identified as one of the strategic capabilities that will add value to the organizations over their competition. As Singapore is one of the most globally competitive countries, it attracts highly skilled and extremely innovative people to work here. Age, gender and ethnicity are the most commonly diversified demographic variables observed among the workforce of many organizations. Thus, the present study focuses on the effect of the workforce diversity in terms of age, gender and ethnicity. If the diversity of the workforce is properly managed, it will provide positive benefits. If not properly managed, however, it could lead to negative results. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the views of employees in both the manufacturing as well as the service industries in Singapore. The reliability of the survey was tested by estimating Cronbach’s alpha. The empirical relationship of age, gender and ethnicity of the employees with the performance was computed using Software Package for Social Science (SPSS). The analysis reveals that the three variables do not have a statistically significant impact on the performance of employees. Human resource programmes suggested by the employees to improve the effectiveness of workforce diversity has been recommended.