Intercultural communication challenges in global workforce management

Global Expansion

There are several issues that need to be addressed when considering building a global workforce. First, there are the inherent intercultural communication challenges. Management needs to be aware that even among people from ostensibly similar countries (e.g. Canada and USA) there are often differences in communication styles that can create friction. Most people around the world have only limited exposure to people from other cultures, and so the risk of conflict arising from cultural differences is quite high in a global workforce (Roberts, Kossek & Ozeki, 1998). The second thing management needs to keep in mind is that there will need to be a training program in place. The training program shouldn\\\'t be the sort of thing that tries to explain communication style of individuals based on assumptions about culture, but rather should teach the soft skills associated with managing intercultural communication – the listening, the empathy, the need for clarification and reinforcement of communication. This training has been shown effective in reducing intercultural communication conflict among global workforces (Zakaria, 2000). A fourth major implication is that there needs to be different modes of communication utilized. One of the major issues with global workforce teams is that they rely heavily on written communication. First, many people are not using their native language and second, there is no non-verbal communication. Third, they are in different time zones. Not only can communication lack clarity, for example, if the company relies solely on email, but the communication can suffer from time gaps – people might not be able to wait for a response from the other side of the world, and could go ahead with work, only to find out that this was a problem. So management has to think about how communication will be done, and what implications that might have on the workflow. A fourth major consideration is leadership style. Some cultures emphasize strong leaders and followers, in defined roles. That is much of the world, actually. Other cultures are more open. As an example, in a lot of companies in the US, it is acceptable to openly challenge your boss on an idea, especially if you have evidence at hand to support your position. In many countries, it does not matter if you are right – you simply cannot challenge your boss, even in private. So an American boss of a global team might wonder why his elite talent the other side of the world isn\\\'t offering any ideas – it\\\'s just not part of their culture. This can create a problem with respect to leader-follower expectations that can undermine the effectiveness of the project at hand.