This paper examines the management of culturally diverse workforces, with a particular focus on healthcare organizations. It begins by defining diversity and outlining how organizational culture — encompassing artifacts, values, norms, and basic assumptions — shapes employee behavior and organizational outcomes. The paper distinguishes between strong and weak organizational cultures, explaining how each affects employee loyalty, productivity, and conflict. It then presents a practical six-step HR framework for managing cultural diversity, covering change creation, leadership as champions, employee engagement, team orientation, cultural change tracking, and diversity training. The paper draws on established organizational behavior and strategic HR management literature throughout.
Diversity refers to the demographic variations of one form or another among the members of a particular group (Podsiadlowski, Groschke, Kogler, Springer & van der Zeec, 2013). Scholars have come up with different ways of categorizing demographic differences, often predicting the outcomes for different work groups based on the degree and nature of diversity in the workforce. In addition, the culture of a company heavily influences its decisions and outcomes. An organization's prevailing beliefs, attitudes, values, and ideas guide the way its staff members feel, think, and conduct themselves. This often occurs subconsciously (Hernandez & O'Connor, 2010).
Organizational culture is one of the best theoretical principles required for understanding how companies work. To verify and use organizational theories, one has to compare the different cultures across organizations, which means identifying common perspectives for evaluating organizational culture. Organizational culture can be evaluated by reflecting on the inner views of the members of an organization.
There are several levels of culture. Despite being dominant, "norms" and "values" are only the intermediate levels of culture (Papa, Daniels & Spiker, 2008). The other levels in this multilayered culture model are the superficial level — manifested in the form of "artifacts" — and the deepest level, manifested in the form of "basic assumptions." The three different layers of culture have been studied using different approaches: "basic assumptions" and "artifacts" are normally investigated using qualitative approaches, while "values and norms," which are the focus of this paper, are normally studied using quantitative approaches (Hernandez & O'Connor, 2010; Podsiadlowski et al., 2013).
Organizational values are those which inform the conduct and behaviors of all employees (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013). Values often belong more to the individuals working in an organization than to the organization itself; thus, the assessment of values should be of particular importance during any hiring process or reassignment of staff (Robbins & Judge, 2011). The norms or patterns of conduct in an organization are the ways that the majority of its members think, believe, and behave (Luthans & Doh Jonathan, 2015).
A strong organizational culture is one in which there are dominant or shared assumptions and beliefs that are consistently adhered to throughout an entire organization. There are three factors that determine the strength of an organizational culture. The first is thickness — this represents the number of beliefs or assumptions shared by the organization's members. The second is the degree of sharing — which represents the number of members who share those beliefs or assumptions. The third is the clarity of ordering, which denotes how dominant the beliefs or assumptions are compared to competing ones. Strong cultures, therefore, are those that are thick, well-ordered, and widely shared (Papa et al., 2008).
A strong organizational culture in a healthcare organization creates a clear sense of guidance and meaning, allowing employees to achieve set goals. A strong culture also enables staff to better identify with organizational values, in turn fostering greater loyalty, cooperation, morale, and commitment to their work (Hernandez & O'Connor, 2010). On the other hand, conflicting beliefs or assumptions and a lack of consensus on key issues can result in a weak organizational structure, producing rampant divisiveness, animosity, or even outright conflict — ultimately leading to decreases in productivity and profitability (Hernandez & O'Connor, 2010).
"Six-step HR framework for managing cultural diversity"
Culture can only be effective if it is applied in a relevant area that requires some form of change or if it is tied to a specific organizational issue (Runy, 2007).
Management is one of the most significant determinants of success in culture change. The leaders of organizations ought to be the champions — at the forefront of understanding and managing a culturally diverse workforce. A leader should be able to effectively use rewards and corrective measures to merge the organization's subcultures into several dominant and widely shared beliefs and values, enabling the organization to function in harmony (Runy, 2007; Boddy, 2011).
The engagement and empowerment of employees is crucial to guarantee the effective management and integration of subcultures within an organization (Boddy, 2011).
Teamwork is one of the pillars of strong culture in successful organizations. Working in a team can help an organization's members cross cultural barriers and promote dominant beliefs and assumptions. Teamwork is also one of the key ways through which individual and organizational talent can be developed (Hernandez & O'Connor, 2010).
Tracking cultural change is one of the ways of evaluating whether culture has been correctly merged or aligned with subculture practices, or assessing whether there are challenges that could interfere with the dominant ethos and cultural assumptions of an organization (Hernandez & O'Connor, 2010).
Training staff in cultural awareness is another important tool for managing a culturally diverse workforce. While culture is an important aspect of management training, it is equally important for managers to take their own initiative to learn about the general assumptions present in their organization and to shape those assumptions through rewards and recognition in order to achieve the desired organizational outcomes (Hernandez & O'Connor, 2010; Boddy, 2011). For further reading on diversity management practices, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission provides relevant guidance on inclusive workplace policies.
Boddy, C. R. (2011). Corporate psychopaths: Organizational destroyers. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hernandez, S. R. & O'Connor, S. J. (2010). Strategic human resources management in health services organizations (3rd ed.). Delmar Cengage Learning.
Luthans, F. & Doh Jonathan, P. (2015). International management, culture, strategy and behavior (9th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Papa, M. J., Daniels, T. D., & Spiker, B. K. (2008). Organizational communication perspectives and trends (4th ed.). Sage Publications.
Podsiadlowski, A., Groschke, D., Kogler, M., Springer, C., & van der Zeec, K. (2013). Managing a culturally diverse workforce: Diversity perspectives in organizations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37, 159–175.
Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. (2011). Essentials of organizational behavior. Prentice Hall.
Runy, L. A. (2007). Creating a culture of patient safety. Hospitals & Health Networks, 81(5), 51–55.
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