Effect of workforce diversity practices on the performance of Bungoma County Government

Abstract

Diversity is the variety or multiplicity of demographic features that characterize a company’s workforce, particularly in terms of age, gender, culture, national origin, handicap, and religion. In some countries, it has come about as government legislation to ensure equity in sharing of available employment opportunities due to high levels of unemployment. Diversity of the workforce has a significant effect on the performance of the organization. The general objective of the study was to determine the influence of workforce diversity practices on the county government performance of Bungoma. Bungoma county government has 6248 employees that formed the population under study. The sample involved 54 employees from the directorate of the human resource, and they were classified into 3 strata of management. The study employed a descriptive research design in data collection and data analysis was done using SPSS version 19. The findings showed that there was a significant relationship between workforce diversity practices with county government performance. The county had more than half of its workforce being youthful (58%). The workforce had an intellectual diversified pool that was well educated and finally, there was awareness of the two-thirds gender rule – a legislative provision in Kenya’s governance system. The model that was used in estimating the relationship between workforce diversity practices and county government performance confirmed that the levels and practices of diversity in the workforce would explain 33.9% of the variation in county performance.