There are many ways to define diversity. Most focus on various dimensions, such as gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, education, or work status.

 Diversity can be defined as “any significant difference that distinguishes one individual from another,” Individuals from diverse backgrounds bring to a group different perspective on how to solve a task and have access to different resources enhancing creativity and performance  and leading to a more interesting and satisfying workplace.

In the attached article , the attributes of diversity are defined:

education, tenure, racio-ethnicity,personality, knowledge, values

The attributes of interest were those that can be readily detected upon first meeting a person (e.g., age, sex, racio-ethnicity), underlying attributes that become evident only after getting to know a person well (e.g., personality, knowledge, values), and attributes that fall between these two extremes of transparency (e.g., education, tenure). Some of the attributes we consider had direct relevance to the work (e.g., job tenure) while other attributes wereonly indirectly relevant to the work (e.g., sex).

Jackson, S. E., Joshi, A., & Erhardt, N. L. (2003). Recent research on team and organizational diversity: SWOT analysis and implications. Journal of management, 29(6), 801-830.

http://web.mit.edu/cortiz/www/Diversity/PDFs/Jackson%20et%20al,%202003.pdf

Variables relevant for measuring Diversity Sensitivity in organizations are:

1. Policy of organization regarding diversity.

2. Whether recruitment and selections are preferred and made without gender, race, religion, etc discrimination?

3. Whether training and development facilities and opportunities are available without any discrimination?

4.  Performance appraisal is fair to all.

5.  Promotions are made without discrimination.

6.  Wages and salaries are fixed without discrimination.

7.  Organizational facilities are made available to all without discrimination.

8.  Ensuring fair treatment.

9.  Promoting mentoring system to diverse employees.

Further, see my papers on workforce diversity available on research gate.

Thanks

Hi, Debi:

Diversity Sensitivity has been a continuous challenge---as reported here in the local media---for big corporations such as Google, Facebook, etc in the Silicon Valley particularly at the executive level positions/responsibilities!  A recent research study (Zhang and Goldberg, 2014) perhaps may lead you to what you're looking for!

The authors explained– sensitivity to gender and race/ethnicity diversity – and examined how differences in these constructs moderate the diversity – affective outcomes relationships. They had a sample of 250 full-time employees complete an online survey on their sensitivity, workgroup diversity, and affective reactions toward their workgroups. Their study performed a construct validation of the new sensitivity to diversity measures and found that they were conceptually distinct from two existing diversity perceptual constructs – gender identity salience and pro-diversity belief.

The authors found that the moderating effect of sensitivity to gender diversity on the relationship between gender diversity and perceived cohesiveness and work group commitment was stronger for women than for men. The authors also found that the moderating role of sensitivity to race/ethnicity diversity on the relationship between race/ethnicity diversity and work group commitment and satisfaction with coworkers varied by race/ethnicity. Although common method variance can be a problem, diagnostic tests indicated that it had minimal influence on the results.

The authors suggested that organizations need to understand how individual differences among employees, especially among female and racial/ethnic minority employees, affect their responses to work group diversity and diversity initiatives!

• Zhang, L., & Goldberg, C. (2014). Sensitivity-to-diversity: a moderator of diversity – affective outcomes relationships. Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, 33(6), 494-509.

Hope this helps!

Nadeem

We have this paper in press 

Sliter, M., Boyd, L., Sinclair, R. R., Cheung, J. H., & McFadden, A. (In Press). Inching toward inclusiveness: Diversity climate, interpersonal conflict and well-being in women nurses. Sex Roles.

May a Delphi method was used to build consensus on what definition constitutes success in terms of diversity initiatives. A panel of experts in organizational diversity selected among internal and external stakeholder groups completed three rounds of web-based data collection.

Four key concepts emerged for measuring success:

(1) employee perception;

(2) organizational climate/culture are essential components to measure success;

(3) definitions and measures of success focus on employee lifecycle data related to attracting, developing, and retaining employees) and to employee demographics; and (4) definitions and measures for success are primarily internally focused within the organization rather than on measures external to the organization. Based on these findings, a metric to measure success of diversity work was developed, combining overlapping aspects from the four key concepts into a triangulation of three essential components that target employee life cycle data, perceptions of leaders, and organizational culture

The variable of measure motivation in terms of observable cognitive: Affective (e.g., subjective experience); Behavioral (e.g., performance); and Physiological (e.g., brain activation) responses and using self-reports.

I appreciate for your voted up Prof Saini, and for this good chance let me wish you Happy Holiday.

Kind regards

Hengky

Dear Professor Debi Saini, Hello

As far as diversity in organisations is concerned, we concentrate on two types of diversities i.e. cultural diversity and gender diversity. the cultural diversity index can be prepared by measuring level of cultural intelligence and cultural adjustment level of the employees in the organisation that ultimately affect employee performance in multicultural context.. We have empirically proved this in our research paper yet to be published in Cross Cultural Management An International Journal (Emerald Publishers). We have validated these measures, which can help in generating Diversity sensitivity Index. Please tell me if you require it.

The additional variable e.g. how and how frequent cross-cultural training programs are conducted by organizations shows how much serious the organization is about Diversity Sensitivity.

Major factors include: Gender, age, capabilities, culture, religion, race.

Minor factors are; socio-economic status, level of education, geographical affiliation, marital status.