Workforce diversity and management: An emphirical study on relationship between diversity management practices, obstacles and acceptance of gender diversity among employees in IT industry; Bangalore

Advances in technology and the advent of a global economy bring the people of the world closer together than ever before. Given this fact, businesses, educational systems and other entities are investigating ways to better recruit their workforce by attracting and retaining the best and most qualified workers. Diversity inclusion and managing diversity are becoming strategic issues for the multinational companies throughout the world. Diversity Management is a process intended to create and maintain a positive work environment where the similarities and differences of individuals are valued. As Information Technology (IT) 1 industry needs talent from throughout the world, it has accepted diversity in workforce and successfully reaping the benefits of workforce diversity. Bangalore is the IT hub of India and companies show much wider variety of workforce diversity at the organizational level. Around 30% to 32% of the female workforce has been recruited by IT organizations and it is the major recruiter of women workforce in India. This paper examines the acceptance of gender diversity among employees and how the impact of diversity management programs and practices has taken by different IT companies, and also investigates influence of obstacles present in IT industry. The population for the study consists of employees from Information Technology firms including IT services companies and ITES-BPO companies 2 situated at Bangalore. With the help of focus group interview and discussions with HR managers of reputed companies, questionnaire was developed by the researcher. A pilot study was conducted by considering the responses of 100 employees. The developed tool was found to be reliable by getting Cronbach's alpha values for the variables structured in questionnaire.