The benefits of having a diverse workplace and a diverse community are obvious, but it always helps if some researchers back up these common-sense positions with helpful facts and demonstrated success. For those who champion diversity initiatives you’ll be pleased to know that a diverse workforce can mean $630 more per year per employee in a retail environment.
The study, co-authored by professors from Temple University, Rutgers University and Davidson College, studied 739 outlets of the U.S. department store J.C. Penney. According to the study, stores where the pool of employees mirrored the ethnic makeup of the communities they served earned an average of $94,000 more per year than stores in which staff wasn’t as representative of the wider community.
That figure averages out to $630 more per employee, and earned the company an extra $69 million last year, the study found.