Cultural Diversity Issue of Non-American Employees Communicating

¶ … cultural diversity issue of non-American employees communicating frequently in their own native language creating an environment of sensitivity and bias amongst the non-Hispanic community.

Handling Diversity in an Organization

The contents of this paper focus on the cultural diversity involving Films Recovery Systems, an American company located at the heart of Chicago, Illinois. The paper takes an insight into the issue and also proposes solutions that can resolve the problem. The most important aspect of the paper is that it takes into account the material we find and read in books and compares to what degree the literature is actually applicable in real life situations.

Academic Literature

The study of public administration includes a spectrum of many disciplines, which include psychology, sociology, philosophy and also management sciences. Even though, the nature of public administration does not conveniently classify its elements into components, public administration is primarily categorized to highlight the concepts of organizational theory, organizational behavior, leadership, management, human resource management, economics, policy analysis, budgetary process, finance issues, administrative law, ethics, the practice of social research, program evaluation, democratic governance, and last but not the least public participation. Most of these concepts are incorporated into the management science that is known to us as 'Human Resource'. [Human Resources and Personnel Management]

It is very important to study management sciences in an effort to comprehend our surrounding environment in all aspects of life especially, at the work place. By understanding many concepts and theories in this field we can view future prospects with an aim of achieving certain goals at the end. This not only involves an in-depth study of organizations, their structure, and the behavior of individuals and groups within organizations but also coming to terms with the pattern of how this was in the past half-century. [Human Resources and Personnel Management]

Fredric Taylor was the first person to carry out an intensive study on the functioning of organizations and the relationship between the hierarchy levels and organizational efficiency and also what is the effect of one on another. In the early 1900's, the work he did was more so related to scientific nature; with his research on workplace functioning, he came up with the most competent structures and functions for an effective organizational process. Later on, Taylor's "Structuralist" approach became popular amongst organizational theorists and remained of great importance for many years serving as the main foundation for "Classical" theorists such as Henri Fayol and Max Weber who championed the notion of bureaucracy as the basic pillar on which an organization stands. [Corporate culture and performance]

The principles of bureaucracy promoted by the German sociologist, Weber, were largely based on the ideals of social equity, which encourages unfailing treatment of workers and primarily focuses on achieving maximum organizational efficiency with the help of predictability, order and precision. The basic tenets of the bureaucratic ideal include:

Each employee within an organization having a specified and official area of responsibility that is assigned relative to the competence and experience of that employee,

Each employee having only one supervisor, thus creating a system of orderly supervision and subordination,

The use of written directions from managers to employees, including manuals containing rules and procedures for employee conduct,

The provision of extensive training for managers and employees alike with a view to enabling them to adequately perform their employment responsibility,

Promotion based on achievement, and The expectation that managers will be consistent and that rules will be complete and learnable.

Human Resources and Personnel Management]

The main essential principles of bureaucracy obviously appear comprehensive to a large percent of the population and but the truth is that in today's times, the current bureaucracies are frequently condemned for being strictly controlled, unresponsive, and run inflexible organizations that are unable to handle the situations. This is why, many bureaucracies are at times said to be institutions whose processes eventually lead to the end of their existence.

Keeping in mind the structural perspectives of the Scientific Management, Classical and Bureaucratic schools of organizational theory are each designed on the positivist thinking, whereby organizations and individuals are viewed according to a specific prototype. The reaction to such thinking, from a behaviorally orientated perspective, focusing on the human presence within organizations, came to be a crucial factor in the field of organizational theory.

Most notable among these schools of thought are the "Human Relations" school and the "Leadership" school. The former was best known for the Hawthorne Effect and the latter came to be best known for leadership thinking in terms of Theory X and Theory Y With so many schools focusing on the individual in both the area of Human Relations and Leadership skills, it was obvious that the new area of concentration would primarily be focusing on organizational functions and this is exactly where the theorists diverted their attention to drastically over the years, primarily since, it served as a social response to greater stress on the values of individuality. This change served to throw light on the paradigm of organizational theories, which had previously failed to highlight the importance of individuals within an organization. [Organizations in Action]

With ample knowledge on the history of thought in association to organizational theory, its not surprising that contemporary thinking aims to promote an integrative approach, which aims at accommodating two perspectives of both Structuralist and Behavioral aspects. The "Systems Theory" and the "Contingency Theory" exemplify this paradigm. In the Systems Theory, there is a system of recognition that focuses on the fact that every system is made up of a number of inter-related, interdependent, and interacting sub-systems. In short, it is an affirmation that organizations should be looked into as an open system, which is in a state of constant change because organizations are based on a constant transformation process to produce the required outputs.

The task of human resource as stated in many books is to build an organizational culture based on good communication, comprehensive training and development programs, and also consequent rewards for the individuals performance, ability to take risk, plan well and work in teams. Even if the nature of a culture within an organization is unknown outside its premises, the truth is that its importance cannot be eliminated because culture is extremely influential in determining the degree to which an organization is able to achieve its mission and strategic goals as per plan. [The Six Levers for Managing Organizational Culture]

Human resource builds the organizational culture so this makes the organizational structure its product because the structure is a reflection of its culture. The task of the human resource department is to create an environment around the situation of an organization because this helps to bring out the best from the employees concerned and also lets the culture remain as it is and also allow certain structures to be re-planned for the better functioning of its counterparts.

To get the best of the human resources in any company is mandatory that at the most basic level, the human resource department can create a customized culture by hiring new members who fit the new culture and simultaneously transferring or firing others who do not fit such a culture. There are a few sophisticated techniques to manage culture. This involves formulating strategies in such a way that reflects the cultural agenda in the process of strategy creation and the definition of the vision statement, since this helps to manage the direction of the information in order to create the culture that allows smooth communication, which highlights the concept of sharing information vs. controlling; utilize motivational tools and reward system that are consistent with organizational values, such as, production incentives or customer service awards. Also areas and functions of budgeting and reporting should be done in ways that promote the desired levels of employee independence and, manage conflicts among workers using techniques that reflect a culture of freedom. [The wisdom of teams]

The head of the human resource management is like a leader itself because he/she has to work on the same principles of leadership. The best way to understand the task of the leader in any project management or any departmental head is to comprehend leadership by evaluating the importance of a "vision" and the achievement of "the output." This implies that it is the head of the project team that is responsible for instilling a vision into the group or team in such a way that the team strives to work diligently to achieves the expected results. Irrespective of whether the vision is penned down by the leader or if the leader motivates others to adopt a vision is not what is of utmost importance, but the significant fact that is crucial is the environment the leader creates with a focused tool to drive the communicated vision. In other words, the vision is defined as a primary aspect of leadership in ensuring that the ideal results are achieved from the employees in any project.

There is great thought with respect to the source of leadership ability. Some of the early supposition was that in this field a successful leader was born with qualities enabling him or her to be a good leader. Keeping this in mind, the general notion was that back in the 1940's and early 1950's characteristics, such as, intelligence, persistence, self-confidence, alertness and preference for control separated born-leaders from non-leaders. In response to this belief, various types of thinking and contrasting theories of leadership arose later, which supported the notion that a leader's behavior, instead of their traits, is what defined one's ability to be a good leader.

The way today's organizations function, it is important for the leader to have a desirable impact on the organizational goals, the facilitative, democratic and coaching styles are positive while the authoritative style is mostly positive. In comparison, the coercive and pacesetting styles have a negative impact on the environment of any organization. [Managing Change: A collection of articles]

However, it is also a very normal process to state that one leadership style is always better than the other one. Hence, contemporary thinking on leadership suggests that some styles are more appropriate than others in some situations, which implies that a leader's style should be based on the present situation. Therefore, excellence in a leader's style is the ability to use a range of diverse styles maybe in certain situations more than one style at time may have to be used so one should have the ability to change from one style to another very quickly. This enables the leader of any organization to bring out the best from any individual in the team according to one's specific nature. With the passage of time and acquired experience, leaders learn this ability, especially if they willingly play with various styles and use new techniques. One such example involves identifying coercive leaders as those who could benefit from improving their "emotional intelligence" by concentrating on the development of personal competencies such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skill. [Managing Change: A collection of articles]

To lead is to show the way by going in advance. To lead is to guide or direct a course of action. To lead is to influence the behavior or opinion of others. We all need to be leaders, regardless of our formal title or role. This starts with inner self-leadership and moves outward to influence, guide, support, and lead others. The process of becoming a leader is the same as the process of becoming a highly effective human being. Leadership development is personal development. Leadership ultimately shows itself in what we do out there. But it starts in here."

Human Resource Management

Human resource management is probably today's most leading aspect of administration provided that the function of "employee" permeates every department of an organization, whether it is a municipal transit service, a finance unit, or a policy analysis function. This is the reason, regardless of whether it is a choice or circumstance, human resource management is all about the managers working for the company as a whole and not just its own department since its objective is to present a focal point for all the managers. [Human Resources and Personnel Management]

Human resource management is defined as "the policies, practices and systems that influence employees' behavior, attitudes, and performance." It also integrates management functions such as forecasting, recruiting, selecting, training, evaluating, compensating, and of course, assists employee/employer relations.

Under the subject of "Strategic Human Resource Management," these functions have been categorized into the following seven functions: determining human resource needs; attracting potential employees; choosing employees; teaching/preparing; rewarding; evaluating performance; and creating a positive work environment. Keeping in view these functions, Strategic Human Resource Management is described as a format of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals and is apparently a part of a wider range of organizational or strategic plan for any corporate. [Human Resources and Personnel Management]

The aspects of human resource management are worth studying and comprehending. In its most simple form, human resource planning forecasts organizational demand and supply of potential employees. In strategic human resource management, this type of planning involves distributing financial resources and determining human resource priorities in a way that represents an organization's vision and strategic plan in its human resource planning. So, potentially leading to downsizing, hiring temporary employees, privatizing, etc. this is why the organizational strategic plan should direct and support the course of action taken.

Recruitment is the phase between planning and the actual selection of new employees, in the human resource management process. Organizations recruit employees regularly, are interested in increasing the number of applicants for each employment position, targeting the type of applicants to find a match for the employee position and the nature of employment, and increasing the possibility that a potential applicant who is offered a position will actually accept that position. It is a normal practice for large corporations in the private sector to recruit in an on-going process to always having a pile of interested applicants, such "strategic" recruiting is rare in the public sector since recruiting there is through the form of advertising available employment opportunities only when they vacant.

The most challenging aspect of human resource management is selecting the best applicant when hiring an employee for a vacant position. In doing so, an employer relies on interviews, ability tests, personality inventories, work samples, or reference checks in determining how well a potential employee will perform job tasks in a position. In varying degrees, each of selection techniques serve as a validity test - that is, they are used independently to assist an employer in analyzing or predicting how well a potential employee will function in a position. However, in spite of such predictive validity indicators there is limited reliability when it comes to testing one's performance and that's why human resource managers often recognize and consider their own personal feelings and impressions towards an applicant keeping in mind the above factors when hiring new employees or taking in present employees for projects.

Managing Diversity in Practice

One of the most surprising results from the census taken in the year 2000 for many companies dealing with customer service was that Hispanics comprised of nearly 13% of the U.S. population. This was more than the population of the African-Americans who were considered to be the largest minority group in the country till the census. [Many Americans Find Bias at Work]

This new interesting statistic not only shocked the customer service companies but also caused many to contemplate ways to cash in from this new market. The main issue is that unlike African-Americans, who use to be the largest minority group in the United States, the new growing communities of Hispanics speak little or no English at all. To improve the customer service, many companies opted for implementing Spanish as another mode of communication to their workforce.

Although, this helped to increase the number of customers in the companies dealing with healthcare and customer service industries because the employees started to provide better service to the growing Hispanic community. This also led to the workplace diversity becoming a new challenge in this century.

If we look back into the history of the labor movement we learn about the past where working together and developing partnerships with other companies was mainly done to achieve fair and equitable working conditions for all.

In every company, the union movement plays a crucial role in promoting and implementing the knowledge and skills of the Non-English Speaking workers, because there is great scope of these diverse employees in the growing global market. This brings an advantage to those workers who have been at a disadvantage because of discrimination and otherwise. However, if we take the example of Australia, we come to know that their society gained tremendously from the diverse cultures in the economy and culture as well. [Many Americans Find Bias at Work]

Unions are suppose to play an important role in making sure that workers are entitled to decent working conditions and also receive their wages on time like they are suppose to according to the awards and agreements framed by the various companies.

With growing problems and issues of sensitivity, it is healthy to involve the union to take the initiative to enable the workplace to be free from discrimination, sexual harassment, and racism and also issues related to using native languages as an option in communicating. However, there is still a lot that needs to be done.

The fact is that America now depends on the contribution made by the migrant community for success in their economic, social and cultural aspects.

The truth is that times world over have changed demanding workforce that is not only literate but also willing to do jobs that require skills and sound knowledge.

In today's global world, the eminent presence of non-English speaking workers in communicating with a culturally diverse economy, and also catering to a growing export economy is evident.

The CFMEU and Aspect Packaging Agreement of 1995 clearly state that the improvement of English Language Literacy and skills is connected with the success of the industry, workplace and training programs. This allows workers to participate in training and to be involved in all workplace activities and other processes.

The United States now has more women, minorities, immigrants, non-English or somewhat English speaking skills workers, and also older workers in the U.S. workforce today. This is why employees now have different needs, expectations making the management face growing challenges.

With so many differences it is important to deal with conflicts, and harassment complaints, so it is vital to communicate, coordinate and manage a diverse group. Following are some suggestions that will help solve some issues related to workplace diversity.

Many employers now have non-English or limited-English speaking workers it is very important for such workplaces, to have policies and procedures designed to facilitate communication. Employers should not adopt blanket policies stopping workers from speaking languages other than English at all times. Therefore, employers have to consider the following practices:

Identify the jobs, which require a particular language comprehension. An employer must be able to show that the language requirement is a bona fide occupational qualification. This means the employer must be able to prove that: (1) language ability is an essential part of the job; (2) an incumbent cannot successfully perform the job without the language ability; (3) the language requirement is incorporated into the job description for the position; and (4) the requirement is consistently and uniformly enforced.

Determine if you need an English-only rule during working time.

Identify key documents, which should be translated for non-English speakers. written employment agreements; and releases and settlement agreements are important.

Create a list of available translators. Translators will be necessary if it becomes necessary to communicate orally with a non-English speaking or limited-English speaking employee. Circumstances where it may be necessary to have a translator include but are not limited to: discrimination and harassment investigations; depositions; participation in administrative hearings; and settlement negotiations. Translators can be fellow employees or non-employees. Check with the following sources for a list of available translators: courts; consulates; universities or schools.

Train new arrivals on U.S. standards of behavior. The biggest mistake any employer could make is to assume that a non-American will know how to behave in the U.S. Our laws, values, ethics and standards of behavior are very unique. Train existing employees on harassment and discrimination. People are often culturally and/or socially insensitive. While most employees are not intentionally offensive, they are frequently unaware of how their "jokes" affect others. All employees should be trained to refrain from engaging in conduct, which could be construed as harassment and/or discrimination. Employers may also want to consider alerting employees to behaviors which other cultures (or the other sex) finds offensive.

Develop a risk management program. The Employee Organization program will provide protection