Towards well-being: role of diversity and nature of work

Abstract

Purpose Literature highlights diversity to facilitate cognitive outcomes; nevertheless, there is limited scholarly attention on affective diversity effects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of perceived diversity on employee well-being (EWB) and contend different types of diversity to yield differential impact. Further, the authors explore how nature of employee work can moderate these relationships. Design/methodology/approach With 311 full-time employees representing large manufacturing organizations in India, the authors test the hypothesized relationships using PROCESS macro. Findings Results indicate perception of surface and knowledge diversity having a significant positive impact on EWB. Further, the authors found nature of employee work to moderate the link between knowledge diversity and well-being such that perception of knowledge diversity under complex tasks enhanced well-being; no impact of work complexity was observed on the link between surface diversity and well-being. Research limitations/implications Perceived diversity is malleable lending itself to longitudinal work in this field. Besides nature of work, future research may explore other key contextual factors in diversity dynamics. Practical implications Contrary to the longstanding theories such as social categorization/similarity attraction, the authors found surface diversity to positively influence EWB. This indicates firms’ effective diversity management strategies in creating inclusive workplace. Further, the authors draw implications around team design and workforce composition. Originality/value While the scholarly attention to perceived diversity is gradually growing, in a first, the authors empirically examine the impact of diversity perceptions on employee affect in the context of Indian manufacturing firms.

Perceived diversity and employee well-being: mediating role of inclusion

“…Extant literature cites several factors affecting EWB such as meaningful work, enriched jobs, positive organizational culture and supportive leadership (de Jonge et al, 2001;Nielsen and Munir, 2009;Shier and Graham, 2013). Employees in contemporary Indian organizations relate their well-being with aspects such as workplace safety, relationships, type of work and work environment ( Jaiswal and Dyaram, 2018;Sinha, 2011). We consider EWB as drawn from employee work environment and work characteristics.…”

How do human resource management practices affect employee well-being? A mediated moderation model

“…Improving employee well-being (EWB) is an important human resource management issue (Pawar, 2016;Huang, Xing, and Gamble, 2019). EWB is an essential part of employees' overall life satisfaction (Jaiswal and Dyaram, 2019). Employees who have high levels of well-being tend to be more creative and highly engaged, and achieve greater performance at work than those who have low-level well-being (Khoreva and Wechtler, 2018).…”

“…Employees who have high levels of well-being tend to be more creative and highly engaged, and achieve greater performance at work than those who have low-level well-being (Khoreva and Wechtler, 2018). Consequently, EWB can influence many organizational outcomes, such as productivity and profitability (Jaiswal and Dyaram, 2019), and organizational resilience when encountering adversity (Huang et al, 2019). Surprisingly, organizations have traditionally focused on a high-performance work system (HPWS), treating EWB as a supplementary factor in the organizational output (Inceoglu et al, 2018) rather than part of the organization's mission.…”

Towards a confluence: disability inclusion and organizational change

“…The collective feeling of employees in a work unit reflects the climate and organization's diversity efforts play a significant role in making minority and socially disadvantaged groups including PwD feel included and integrated (Kundu, 2003). Employee perception of organizational politics was found to lower well-being and increase turnover intentions (Jaiswal and Dyaram, 2019;Mishra et al, 2016). Whereas, diversity inclusive climate is known to positively impact organization citizenship behaviour (Panicker et al, 2018) and career re-entry/satisfaction (Ravindran and Baral, 2014).…”

“…Likewise, flexible work design fosters gender diversity (Khandelwal and Sehgal, 2018). Team tasks were suggested to be designed taking knowledge diversity into consideration to effectively address complexities (Jaiswal and Dyaram, 2019).…”