Workforce Diversity and Employee Performance in Referral Hospitals in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

In an ever-changing environment characterized by various changes and transformation, competitive institutions seek to provide customers with high service quality. High employee performance becomes a key issue in organizations as it determines the overall performances of organizations. Healthcare personnel remain the hands and hearts of healthcare. The management of increasing of workforce diversity levels which is inherent in modern organizations has been a matter of high concerns. The works on work force diversity and employee performance are however marred by various research gaps. The project research seeks to examine the effect of workforce diversity on employee performance at Referral Hospitals in Nairobi, Kenya. The specific objectives were to evaluate the effect of gender diversity, cultural diversity, age diversity and educational diversity on employee performance at Referral Hospitals in Nairobi, Kenya. The study was supported by Equity Theory, Multiculturalism Theory and Symbolic Interactionist Theory. Descriptive research design was adopted and the four referrals’ hospitals in Nairobi, Kenya formed the population of the study. The medical staff of these hospitals was used as respondents (sample) of the study. The study relied on primary data which was collected with the use of a questionnaire. The study data was analyzed using descriptive and regression analyses. Various standards and norms relating to ethics were observed in this research. The study demonstrated that gender diversity had significant (β=0.247, p=0.005) effect on employee performance at Referral Hospitals in Nairobi City County; cultural diversity has significant (β=0.230, p=0.022) effect on employee performance at Referral Hospitals in Nairobi City County; age diversity had significant (β=0.326, p=0.000) effect on employee performance at Referral Hospitals in Nairobi City County; and educational level diversity had significant (β=0.275, p=0.003) effect on employee performance at Referral Hospitals in Nairobi City County. To this effect, the investigation advocated those policies should be implemented to ensure sensitivity in the referral hospital recruitment to ensure competition for best medical practices. This in turn improve the health conditions of patients and as well reduce mortality rate of patients in the hospitals; hospital authorities should take into account the sensitivity of cultural differences in enhancing employees’ performance in the referral hospitals. This can be made possible through legislative promulgation for all-inclusive recruitment in the hospital management board from the countries different ethnic groups to avoid marginalization of the minorities.