Gender Diversity: Its Benefits On Business

A recent Gallup study has revealed that hiring a demographically diverse workforce can improve a company's financial performance. More specifically, gender diversity is vital to any workplace; it simply makes bottom-line business sense. The study of more than 800 business units from two companies representing two different industries -- retail and hospitality -- finds that gender-diverse business units have better financial outcomes than those dominated by one gender. And if the gender-diverse business units are also highly engaged, financial performance improves dramatically. The research also cites as prime reason gender-diverse teams perform better than single-gender team: Men and women have different viewpoints, ideas, and market insights, which enables better problem solving. Read more of the reasons and what companies should do.

Gender-diversity being good bottom-line business sense is also the main point of Caroline Turner in her article,"Why You Need to Retain Women: The Business Case for Gender Diversity," (2012), as she cites the following benefits:

•  Catalyst, a research and consulting organization focusing on women in business, and McKinsey have both shown correlations between gender diversity in leadership and the bottom line. 
•  According to The Shriver Report, women are now half of the workforce and hiring pool.
•  A diverse culture that mirrors its markets tends to do better than its homogeneous competitors. 
•  There is more bang for the buck. Women’s needs and approaches to work are shared by other growing sectors of the workforce. Read more