Opportunities of Managing Culturally Diverse

¶ … Opportunities of Managing Culturally Diverse Workplace

The challenges and opportunities for managing a culturally divorced workforce

In the age of globalization and ever-expanding organizations, cultural diversity in the workforce is the reality any large or medium-sized company. A company often provides goods and services for many nations, and individuals from diverse backgrounds are more likely to work for the company. America is also becoming increasingly pluralistic in its ethnic, cultural, and geographic composition. To deal with the challenges of globalization, having individuals within a culturally diverse organization who possess a personal familiarity with common negotiation practices in Japan, or the way that breakfast cereal is eaten in India, can be an invaluable resource to doing business with, advertising and marketing in other nations. Simply dealing with other nations on a human level can become easier by understanding the unspoken etiquette protocols of that nation, small changes in behavior that might be invisible to someone who is not culturally fluent in native practices.

Within the United States, even an entirely nationally-based company can benefit from the insights of the different desires of an African-American demographic that will affect product placement and design. Aspects of diversity that might be invisible, like age or disability, are also important to take into consideration with market segmentation and starting a company outreach in a new environment. Culture is not just about race or ethnicity; every generation has a culture as well. For managers, a diverse workforce is like a living resource or library, a treasure trove of information that no book or database can provide

However, cultural diversity also contains many challenges for a manager. First and foremost, sensitivity training and teaching understanding about different practices and beliefs may be necessary upon the initial orientation of culturally diverse hires into a company, an orientation that once was reserved only for individuals working abroad. Also, individuals used to a more cohesive workplace and company dynamic may take umbrage and some of the attitudes and attire of the more pluralistic workforce, whether this is due to age, ethnicity, national, or cultural background. There may be an inevitable loss of homogeneity of company values, even while creative capital and international knowledge increases.

Communication also may be more difficult, at least initially in a culturally diverse organization. Before, in less diverse circumstances, every person might have seemed fluent in the same company or corporate language, now this is not necessarily the case. The company cannot assume that automatically, new and old workers will 'get along' and that new workers will easily conform to the corporate culture, or think that they should sacrifice their personal beliefs and practices to do so. Today, workers are likely to see their identity as pluralistic or hyphenated. They are workers for a company but also members of their culture and region of origin, rather than as the same as everyone else at the company.

Communication difficulties can mean that simple comments or gestures may be misinterpreted, and negotiating personal differences can create a net loss of productivity, as personality rather than product becomes the focus of work teams. Also, managers from different backgrounds may encounter prejudice, which, however unfairly, impedes their ability to get things done. Morale may suffer in the short-term when an organization becomes more diverse.