1. DIVERSITY AND ITSDIVERSITY AND ITS
EFFECTS ON ANEFFECTS ON AN
ORGANIZATIONORGANIZATION
KWEKU NYINAKU
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
ILR HR 6640

2. AGENDA
 Background of Diversity
 Business Case
 Problems with diversity
 Benchmark of 2 companies’ diversity
strategies
 Recommendations from 2009 NEA conference
 Questions and Answers

3.  Civil Rights Act 1964 Title VII
 Affirmative Action
 Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission
 Ethical Considerations
 Corporate Challenge/Responsibility
BACKGROUND

4.  Utilize diverse talents and abilities of all employees
who are critical to success
 Creativity, innovation, new product development
 Demonstrate to the community a respect for
fairness, tolerance, and human rights
 Globalization, cultural intelligence, attract a more
diverse customer base and creation and maintenance
of a diverse workforce
 Diverse groups better at problem solving and are
more creative than homogeneous teams
BUSINESS CASE

5. PROBLEMS WITH DIVERSITY
 Cost in recruitment, selection, and training
of minority employees
 Diversification may lead to hiring
unskilled talents
 Motivations are antithetical to the
ultimate goal
 Lead to marginalization of minority
employees (Ely & Thomas, 2001; Konrad,
2003)
 Difficulty in measuring

7. BENCHMARKS FROM IBM
“IBM’s diversity strategy helps it to
anticipate, be sensitive and responsive to,
demographic difference” -Ted Childs
 Maintain multicultural markets
 Expand market share
 Improve customer loyalty
 Strong brand image

8. IBM BENCHMARK
Source: The Conference Board, October 2008

9. PITNEY BOWES BENCHMARK
Source: The Conference Board, October 2005

10.  Expand the pool of potential employees
 Monitoring progress
 Evaluating results and making
modifications when necessary
 Affinity groups for problem solving and
work-life balance
 Change Management
NAE RECOMMENDATIONS

11. Questions and Answers