International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development 262 International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development Online ISSN: 2349-4182, Print ISSN: 2349-5979, Impact Factor: RJIF 5.72 www.allsubjectjournal.com Volume 3; Issue 4; April 2016; Page No. 262-268 An empirical study about how cultural, ethnic and workforce diversity influences on employees in their workplace with special reference to Jebel Ali international hospital in Dubai 1 Dr. A. Kumudha, 2 Raji Jennet 1 Associate professor, Department of Business Administration, PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India 2 Research Scholar (FT), Department of Business Administration, PSGR Krishnammal College for Women, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India Abstract Workforce diversity has been identified as one of the strategic capabilities that will add value to the organizations over their competition. As Dubai is one of the most globally competitive countries, it attracts highly skilled and extremely innovative people to work here. Age, gender and ethnicity are the most commonly diversified demographic variables observed among the workforce of many organizations. Thus, the present study focuses on the effect of the workforce diversity in terms of culture, age, gender and ethnicity. If the diversity of the workforce is properly managed, it will provide positive benefits. If not properly managed, it could lead to negative results. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the views of employees in a hospital in Dubai. The reliability of the survey was tested by estimating Cronbach’s alpha. The empirical relationship of culture age, gender and ethnicity of the employees with the performance was computed using Software Package for Social Science (SPSS). The analysis reveals that the four variables have a statistically moderate significant impact on the performance of employees. Keywords: culture diversity, age diversity, ethnic diversity, gender diversity, workforce diversity Introduction The United Arab Emirates (UAE) healthcare system is mainly staffed by Non-UAE of professionals who are recruited from all over the world. As UAE is one of the most globally competitive countries.So employees are willing to work here. Now a days UAE has achieved in to a global phase with the influence of foreign collaborations and innovations by the development of various technologies.Globalization and Internet have reduced the gap in the time to market scale. Thus hyper competition is almost unavoidable in every field. At the same time the technical challenge of industrial problems is getting more difficult as well as more complex. UAE’s workforce has employees from different countries, cultures, generations and genders. This multiculturalism has positioned for improving organizational performance. It is highly influenced by individual employee performance. So this article focus on the employee’s cultural, ethnic and workforce diversity in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, racial background and religious.Hence employees are enhances the organization’s growth. If workforce diversity is not handled correctly, the diverse workforces will badly effects organization growth. An organizational performance is highly influenced by individual employee performance; the positive outcomes of workforce diversity at the employee level would also act as intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivational factors for them and would also increase employee participation. Therefore, this study focuses on the employee’s perception gained through their personal experience in dealing with workforce diversity - with respect to culture, age, gender and ethnicity in the context of their organisation in Dubai oriented. Past research findings indicate that diversity is beneficial to performance under facilitating contexts whereas it is detrimental under inhibiting contexts. In this regard, this study would provide the status of diversity in the working environment in Dubai. Purpose of this study is that to realize cultural, ethnic and workforce diversity affects employee’s performance in the UAE with an organization (private hospital) in Dubai. Problem Statement A good quality decision can be made from a wider choice of alternatives. When the organization has conducive environment for practising workforce diversity, employees will enjoy all the positive benefits such as motivation, knowledge and skill transfer, creativity and better decision making (Amaram, 2007) [3] . and thus they will become catalysts for the organisation’s growth. On the other hand, if workforce diversity is not handled correctly, the formation of various groups will occur; this could lead to miscommunication, emotional conflicts, power struggle and ultimately to high turnover of employees (Jackson et al, 1991; William and O’Reilly, 1998; Jehn, 1995). The diverse workforce will then become an inhibitor for organisation growth. Most of the studies reported in the literature had focused on exploring workforce diversity to improve organizational performance and leadership skills. In this regard, the views of employers and their upper management have been well documented. Very little attention has been paid to study the perception of employees for the inclusion of workforce diversity in their organization. Employees will appreciate and admire the implementation of diversity as a boon to their organization if it brings a positive impact on their performance.