How hiring a gender-diverse workforce can improve a company’s bottom line
Reprinted from Gallup.com
By Sangeeta Bharadwaj Badal
Gender diversity is vital to any workplace. Not just because it’s a laudable goal; it simply makes bottom-line business sense. If you need proof, look no further than a recent Gallup study, which finds that hiring a demographically diverse workforce can improve a company’s financial performance.
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:
- Gender-diverse business units in the retail company have 14% higher average comparable revenue than less-diverse business units (5.24% vs. 4.58%).
- Gender-diverse business units in the hospitality company show 19% higher average quarterly net profit ($16,296 vs. $13,702) than less-diverse business units.
And if the gender-diverse business units are also highly engaged, financial performance improves dramatically. Retail units that are diverse and engaged have a 46% higher increase in comparable revenue. Similarly, diverse and engaged units in the hospitality company have a 58% higher net profit than single-gender and less-engaged units. These results show the additive effect of gender diversity and engagement on a company’s bottom line.
