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I think what we are speaking to here is what does a diversified employee group do for a corporation? What does a company gain from having a diverse group of employees? I don't read into the topic anything having to do with forced quotas or any equal rights of any kind. All I see is; if a corporation has a group of employees from different ethnic, racial, cultural, perhaps even spiritual, backgrounds, is there any benefits to be enjoyed.

I don't know what the promise of workforce diversity but I have to imagine it has something to do with dollars. Few other benefits would convince an organization to freely participate in any program. A study conducted by Covenant Investment Management on the performance of the S&P 500 showed that organizations that excel at building a diverse workforce will experience better financial performance in the long run than organizations which are not effective in managing diversity. In other words, if you build a diverse workforce you are going to make more money. That is one heck of a promise, now, can diversity deliver?

That same study found, the annualized return for the 100 companies which rated lowest in workforce diversity, averaged 7.9 percent. This is compared to 18.3 percent for the 100 companies that rated the highest. The stock market performance of the firms that were high performers on workforce diversity was 2.5 times higher than that of the firms that invested little in diverse work forces.

Some additional benefits experienced by those organizations developing diverse workforces include;

IMPROVED GLOBAL MANAGEMENT CAPACITY: About 30% of the 200 companies surveyed indicated they have a more successful program of placing management employees across the globe. They feel this is due to having built their workforce to include diverse backgrounds that may already be familiar with the global surroundings of their specific location.

AVOIDED COURT COSTS: Another 30% of the S&P 200 indicated that by having the right employee available, who was familiar with specific customs and cultures, they were able to avoid what could otherwise have been very time consuming and expensive litigation.

IMPROVED ACCESS TO NEW MARKETS: The more diverse your management group is the more markets your organization has knowledge of. 40% of the S&P 200 study indicated this was indeed a benefit and it has paid off for them.

LOWERED ABSENTEEISM RATES: This was reported as a realized benefit that progressively gets better as their

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