Dear Workforce: How Do We Measure ROI on Diversity?

Workforce Management
Dear Workforce Newsletter

Dear Workforce: How Do We Measure ROI on Diversity?
Don’t get hung up on proving ROI. Instead, spend your time (and money) on initiatives that make business sense. A successful diversity effort creates a culture in which people of various backgrounds are happy, productive and successful.

Dear Workforce:
What problems might I expect to encounter related to championing diversity in the workplace? Also, what is a good tool to measure the return on investment of having a diverse workforce? I’ve heard varying accounts of whether diversity is a useful tool or merely a politically correct buzzword.
— Blending People Together, services, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Dear Blending:
Promoting the concept of diversity in the workplace is, above all, a process of education. Organizations that report the greatest success (and fewest problems) with diversity obtain maximum productivity from their total workforce. The fundamental concept that your people must understand is easy to grasp: Organizations that get maximum productivity from a wide variety of people tend to perform better than those organizations that don’t.
We have not seen a valid tool for accurately measuring the return on investment in diversity, nor do we believe one exists that would work in a universal sense for most organizations. This article, Diversity’s Business Case Doesn’t Add Up, casts doubt on the claims of some companies that they have proved the ROI of their diversity efforts.
That is not to say that there’s no business value in managing a diverse workforce well; it’s just that no reliable method has been developed to measure that value definitively. That being said, if Company A has developed systems, procedures, policies and a culture that allows men and women from diverse backgrounds to succeed, while Company B’s systems work only for certain types of people, it stands to reason that Company A is going to perform better. The argument needs no help from a measurement tool.
Some people will resist your effort to promote diversity, no matter how skillfully executed. Don’t let that deter you.

Full Story: http://www.workforce.com/archive/article/24/51/08.php