Diversity and organizational commitment to performance are two important factors in today’s multicultural global marketplace. With this in mind, it is important to achieve diversity and enhance organizational commitment in employees, although this can be difficult. Diverse organisations often experience higher levels of performance, and employees show enhanced organisational commitment which can lead to success. Diversity can be increased in a number of ways, including positive discrimination and enhanced understanding. Organisational commitment to performance is generally improved by increased job security and higher levels of leadership distribution. Bearing this in mind, improving the company could use a variety of these factors which are discussed in more detail using an implementation plan below.

With increased globalization, diversity management has become continually more important (Stockdale & Crosby, 2004), particularly if a company is required to engage with other companies or individuals from other areas of the world. Additionally, diversity in gender roles is important not just for fairness, but to ensure that both sexes are represented in the workforce (Stockdale & Crosby, 2004). Bearing this in mind, increasing diversity has the potential to increase organizational performance. Organisational commitment has also been shown to increase in more diverse environments where individuals feel as though they are valued equally to other members of the team (Gilbert, et al., 1999), which again has the potential to increase company performance.

The problem at hand is whether it is important to improve diversity and organizational commitment to performance, which the research suggests it is. The problem is how this improvement can be achieved in a modern marketplace. The problem exists for a number of reasons. The first is that diversity in many sectors is difficult to achieve, based on who has the qualifications and experience to do the job. This is not usually the fault of the individual themselves, but of cultural or social limitations (Lok & Crawford, 2004). There are a number of reasons why organisational commitment may not be high in some areas, including having a defined job role, which can also be affected by a lack of diversity (Lok & Crawford, 2004). Studies show that diverse organisations often perform better, particularly those that function on a global level (Dobbin, et al., 2011), so it is important to understand and tackle this issue.

One way that many organisations increase diversity in the workplace is by setting quotas when hiring new staff. These are usually tallied to the rate in the general population, e.g. promoting a half male and half female workforce (Gilbert, et al., 1999). This can cause some issues as underlying social issues can cause a lower number of qualified applications in some groups (Dobbin, et al., 2011), and many individuals feel that positive discrimination is insulting to their skills (Stockdale & Crosby, 2004). Another solution is to promote an understanding of other cultures using different methods, including workshops and seminars. Although this does not promote diversity in itself, it can help the working environment to function more cohesively and for diversity to become a normal part of the workplace.

There are a number of ways that organisational commitment can be increased, too. Flexibility in the workplace can help employees feel more relaxed and reduce stress, whilst a good work-life balance can do the same, making it imperative in any healthy workplace (Lumley, et al., 2011). Improvements in job security may not be feasible in every environment, but has also been shown to increase levels of organisational commitment to performance (Gilbert, et al., 1999). Finally, an increased distribution of leadership may also have a positive impact on organisational commitment. This involves not only an increase in diversity, as discussed above, but also ensuring that power is not centralised and employees do not feel targeted or undervalued by certain management personnel (Gilbert, et al., 1999).

In conclusion, it is very important to increase diversity and organisational commitment to performance to run a professional and successful business, particularly in light of increased globalisation. Bearing this in mind, several recommendations can be made. Firstly, using positive discrimination to ensure that the workforce mirrors the general population has been shown to be beneficial. Involving personnel who speak English as a second language or who are multilingual can improve business performance (Lumley, et al., 2011). It is also important to promote a healthy work-life balance and flexibility in the workplace. Finally, a fair distribution of leadership would also make a positive impact on the company.