Value of diversity in the workplace

Value of Diversity in the Workplace

The development of new websites throughout the organization I work for is a complex process, both politically and from a technical standpoint as well. The complexity of this process is accentuated by the worldwide locations that include management offices in Southeast Asia, specifically Hong Kong, in addition to Japan, Taiwan and a recently opened office in Beijing, China. The headquarters of the company is located in Southern California with the majority of sales being generated in the U.S. Approximately 30% of revenue is from Asia, with the Chinese market growing the most significantly. Last year, sales grew over 60% on these geographies, hence the focus on creating websites specific to these regions. The websites are initially created here and then sent to these specific regions for analysis and fine-tuning with content. While the Southern California office has a mix of men and women and there is a more egalitarian approach to getting work done, in these other cultures there is clearly a reluctance and discrimination against working with women. This became the source of an ongoing conflict when websites initially sent for review to these offices had been approved quickly until they learned they were written by women in the U.S. Once this was discovered during a strategy meeting held in Tokyo, the approval process ground to a halt and highly specific, very critical reviews of each website and its pages began, slowing the production. In addition, counterparts in Hong Kong and Beijing specifically asked which writer had been working on which page of a website, which had not been an issue before.

Value of Diversity in it Projects

Ironically the best writer, a woman, based in the U.S. offices was raised in the British sections of Hong Kong; her command of the language is the best of any member of the web team. The variation in how she is perceived in the U.S. versus in the Southeast Asian nations is remarkable to see in person. How culturally engrained the roles of Asian women are in those cultures became apparent during a recent trip to the Tokyo offices for a website planning and development series of meetings. During the first meeting a manager addressed her as a secretary instead of one of the key contributors to the project. The cultural variations in the role of women in traditional Japanese organizations contributed to this perception of her role, in addition to the role-stereotyping which often happens in the it industry (Adya, 2008). This became particularly awkward when she presented the new website during the second half of the meeting, which lasted for three hours. The Japanese managers had a cultural bias to see women as subservient and in roles and this became evident during the meeting. As she is Asian, the stereotype they must have had of her led to a degree of awkward interactions as the website was introduced and presented. Her writing ability is exceptional as is her ability to translate complex subjects with a great deal of simplicity. The Japanese managers were critical of the website designs and at times seemed to question the specific approach taken on wording as well. At the culmination of the three hour review of the website our U.S.-based website development team had created, the Japanese managers asked for a re-writing and also for more thorough descriptions of products, in addition to better navigation of the online catalogue as well. Despite the goal of this specific meeting to get approval on all online initiatives throughout Southeast Asia and Japan, it turned into a critique session. As a result, two months of work on the new website was now back in process, meaning other projects in the queue for our company would have to be pushed back as well. Everyone on the U.S. team wondered if they had not known she was a woman whether they would have approved the site design and content.

Cultural Intelligence and Diversity

Our management team later remarked after the meeting how evident the tension was in the room when our top web designer, a petite Asian woman in pants, got up to present. Further, it was clear to our management team that the Japanese manager must come to the U.S. On the next visit to alleviate their concerns of her competency. In addition, the Japanese managers would be able to learn how the processes and systems worked in the U.S., and also learn more about how the translation process worked. In short, it was decided to alternative ninety day meetings between Southern California and Tokyo. It was hoped that is would create a higher level of cultural intelligence in the process (Crowne, 2008) and appreciation for her role in our team. In addition, the critical review they had given the website and its content in Tokyo could be offset in the U.S. By providing additional examples on computer servers, in addition to having more of the staff attend. The approach to building greater levels of cultural intelligence also included introductions to the it staff and tech support organizations in the U.S., so the Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese management teams could see the processes used to publish, maintain, upgrade and replace websites. Ironically the director of client services in the it department is also a woman with over 20 years of industry experience. As the trading off of visits to offices was based on the need for our Asian counterparts to the development, writing and production processes, they would also need to meet with the director of client services. It was hoped that these visits would not only make them aware of our challenges and constraints in serving them, it would also give them an opportunity to see how taking a more open-minded approach to women in key positions on the website team would be enhanced. Ultimately the efficiency and speed of our team, and in broader terms, the success of these websites' time-to-market and project management was based on their changing their perceptions of women's contributions to these projects. The business case of diversity was very process-centric, and paralleled research on the why diversity is critical for companies attaining higher levels of performance (Slater, Weigand, Zwirlein, 2008). Our teams simply did not have the time to waste due to the Asian managers' clear bias regarding women's work on the websites.