Learn It 13.1.2 Diversity in the Workplace

Advantages of Employee Diversity

In the workplace, employee diversity can be a source of competitive advantage. Here are a few specific advantages:

  • Leveraging a broad cross-cultural awareness to identify opportunities and avoid blind spots
  • Increasing the productivity of employees who feel valued and have a sense of belonging
  • Improving an organization’s employer brand and, therefore, ability to recruit and retain talent
  • Improving the market relevance and market value of a company/organization

Apple’s Health App

Consider Apple’s Health App which claims to allow you to “keep tabs on a wide array of data that matters to you—from measurements of your blood pressure and blood glucose to records for your weight and reproductive health.” Despite the promised capability to track reproductive health, the app was launched in 2014 without a tool for monitoring menstrual cycles in what was critiqued as a stereotypical case of gender blindness. TechCrunch writer Sarah Perez summarized the disconnect, noting that menstrual tracking is a key function that “roughly half the population would expect to see included in a comprehensive health tracking app.” And as Perez noted, perhaps that’s not surprising given that 80 percent of Apple’s engineering staff is male.

Perez concludes: “the issue with the Health app is a perfect example of how not having the right [gender] balance internally can actually impact innovations and technology developments.”[1] It took Apple over a year after the product’s initial launch, to add the feature.

For a financial performance view, let’s consider McKinsey & Company’s research on diversity in the workplace. In a 2023 report titled Diversity Matters Even More, McKinsey highlights the following findings, based on the composition of top management and boards:

  • Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 39 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
  • Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 18 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
  • Companies in the bottom quartile both for gender and for ethnicity and race are statistically less likely to achieve above-average financial returns than the average companies in the data set (that is, bottom-quartile companies are lagging rather than merely not leading).

In their 2023 publication, McKinsey again reported finding a positive, statistically significant correlation between executive team diversity and financial performance. Although correlation is not causation, the report notes that the relationship between diversity and performance that has persisted over time, across different industries and regions around the world.[2] They also note that “the business case is the strongest it has been since we’ve been tracking and, for the first time in some areas, equitable representation is in sight. Further, a striking new finding is that leadership diversity is also convincingly associated with holistic growth ambitions, greater social impact, and more satisfied workforces.”[3]


  1. Perez, Sarah. "Apple Stops Ignoring Women’s Health With iOS 9 HealthKit Update, Now Featuring Period Tracking," Tech Crunch, 09 Jun 2015. Web. 26 June 2018. ↵
  2. Dixon-Fyle, Sundiatu, Dame Vivian Hunt, Celia Huber, María Del Mar Martínez, Sara Prince, and Ashley Thomas. “Diversity Matters Even More: The Case for Holistic Impact.” McKinsey & Company, December 5, 2023. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-matters-even-more-the-case-for-holistic-impact#/. ↵
  3. Id. ↵
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