Impact of Age and Gender Diversity on Employee Performance in an Organisation. A Case Study of Zambia Compulsory Standards Agency

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, , language: English, abstract: The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of age and gender diversity on employee performance in an organisation. A descriptive research design was adopted, with Zambia Compulsory Standards Agency (ZCSA) being the focus organisation. The target population comprised a total of 103 employees from various units of the institution. Stratified random sampling technique was used to draw a sample size of 50 respondents from various hierarchical levels. The main data collection instruments were an open and close-ended questionnaire and an interview guide. A set of descriptive statistics including frequencies, percentages, the mean and standard deviation were used to generate tables, bar graphs and pie charts to present the results of the study using SPSS version18. The key findings of the study were that both age and gender diversity have a bearing on the performance of an employee and ultimately on the organisation. Findings show that employees felt comfortable working with either older or younger employees. Others felt positive about being involved in teams that consist of employees with varying ages as this improves their performance. The study found that gender diversity has a high predictive power on employee performance. On the other hand, organisations that create an inclusive environment for all employees irrespective of gender and create policies that eliminate discrimination from the workplace can benefit from gender diversity. A significant relationship between gender diversity and work performance has shown that employees like to work with the opposite gender so long as they can carry out their job professionally. The study concluded that, age diversity is a very crucial resource for firms that intend to have sustainable workforce. It also argues that gender diversity is a vital factor for organisational performance. The study findings show that age diversity is a very crucial resource for organisations that intend to maintain a sustainable workforce. By allowing the establishment of a leadership pipeline, age diversity not only facilitates the creation of a pool of competent employees but allows the organisation to sustain its way of doing business including best practices.