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Why diversity is important for employees
Why diversity is important for employees
Why diversity is important for employees
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Diversity is the key to growth in today’s aggressively competitive global marketplace. Leaders can no longer hide behind their lack of cultural intelligence, but embrace diversity. To enjoy its benefits. Cultural diversity refers to the varieties of human cultures and the cultural difference that exist in the organization, society or the world as a whole (Amadeo, K., 2014). The characteristics of diversity include race, language, ethnicity, religion, value system, education, nationality, social structure, beliefs, sex, and physical appearances. Cultural diversity is increasingly growing in the United State workforce. A report shows a projection of decline in white working age from 83 percent to 63 percent and an increase in the minority group from 18 percent to 37 percent by 2020 (NCPPHD, 2005). The cultural diversity has contributed substantially to the social and economic growth of the country. Leaders in an organization should not ignore the substantial benefits of cultural diversity in the workplace, but maintained and value it to increase the organization’s reputation and productivity.
The Advantages of Managing Cultural Diversity
Cultural diversity can bring tangible benefits to an organization who is ready to foster, maintained, and value the difference in cultures. The marketplace is becoming more competitive, many business executives are expanding and developing new ideas, products and services beyond their usual culture or environment. A diverse workforce will help to understand the need and interest of another culture within and outside of the region. Thereby helping the company to expand globally, acquire more business opportunities, provide opportunities to create an excellent, diverse customer base and remain compe...
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...mployees how to work better with diverse boss or teammate, create cultural awareness and teaches cultural sensitivity.
A cross-cultural training will help employees learn and understand the custom and beliefs of another culture. Encourages employees to appreciate and see the benefit another can bring into the workplace. The cross-cultural training helps leaders develop global skills for dealing with people or business partner from another culture. The training will not only ensure diversity, but prepares the organization’s leaders for the global market.
In conclusion, as businesses are becoming globally each day and productivity and profitability depends on good interactions with diverse groups. A leader who embraces the importance and the principles of leading an effective, diverse group, will reap the fulfillment and the benefits of being a multicultural leader.
...ounds bring different talents and suggestions to problems. If the workplace is not diverse, problem-solving could be more challenging. Broader service range is also a benefit from diversity in the workplace. Having employees with diverse skills and experiences, such as speaking different languages and understanding other cultures, allows companies to provide services to customers all over the world.
Schein in his book “Organizational Culture and Leadership” explains how different believes and behaviors start to be logical when we understand their cultures by stating “When we learn to see the world through cultural lenses, all kinds of things begin to make sense that initially were mysterious, frustrating, or seemingly stupid” (2010, p. 13). This kind of foresight should be the starting point in order to manage the tremendously growing diversity in the workforce nowadays. Leaders and administrators of both public and private organizations through their influence are responsible to promote and manage diversity in an ethical manner.
Cox, Taylor H. Jr. & Blake, Stacy, 1991, “Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications for Organizational Competitiveness” The Executive, 5 (3), 45-57.
The world is a forever changing climate of people. This requires companies to change with the times. The introduction of different cultures, beliefs, and diverse backgrounds requires a new approach for managing a larger arrange of people. People no longer work in a time of intolerance. Diversity is about the many things that make us individuals and also the similarities that bring us together. Companies should diversify the organizations because it is shown that diversification will increase profits, build a more cohesive work environment, and show appreciation for foreign culture.
Manage cultural differences: In this strategy, project managers try to find both pros and cons due to cultural diversity. They try to always utilize the advantages and manage the disadvantages. They look forward to handle the challenges rather than minimizing the diversity in the organization. Since they want to handle these differences, both project managers and employees need to train themselves about cultural
Advancing the mission and effectiveness of a multicultural organization relies on the ability for a leader to understand the personality traits and individual differences of his/her workforce or team. House, Hanges, Javidan, and Gupta (2004), noted that managers of global organizations are being forced to make critical decisions at alarming rates due to the advancement of globalized competition. Makela, Andersson and Seppala (2012) postulated that a multicultural or global organization expands its capabilities to grow by its ability to distribute and assimilate knowledge across different geographical, cultural and social contexts as expressed through the lens of their global team members. Maria and Lozano (2010) posited
Nowadays, as we all notice that the world is getting flatter. More and more people are getting the chance to work with people from other culture. It is not only limited to the people from the developed countries like Americans and Europeans. People in the developing countries are also open to the opportunity to work with people from other culture. Understanding that culture difference is heavily rooted in people’s everyday behavior is only the first step to get to work with people. Coping the way foreigners do with the local culture is the key point to be successful in working with people from other culture. Misunderstanding the culture and behavioral difference can lead to problems and alienation, even confrontation, between colleagues and ultimately the collapse of partnership. Being self-centered and refusing to social with the local culture would also lead to the failure eventually.
For the purpose of this paper, I will define what the term Diversity means, and then I will concentrate on the diversity as a result of geographic origin or ethnic diversity. I will look at how ethnic diversity is managed generally and then how my employer, deals with the diverse ethnic groups in its organization and what it needs to improve on.
As the organizations are becoming increasingly global and diverse in nature, leaders must create environment in the organization, which allows cultural mindset to thrive among diverse employees (Smith & Victorson, 2012). Hiring diverse employees is becoming a norm for today’s human resource departments of various organizations for getting the competitive edge in the global market. Diverse employee bring different perspectives and cultural mindset into the workplace. To reap the maximum potential of all of the employees’ knowledge, leaders must create an inclusive culture to integrate varied perspectives (Vora, 2004).
There are numerous characteristics that are essential for managers to build and sustain multicultural team. These include the skills of international business knowledge and culture specific knowledge. The understanding people have of a particular country’s beliefs, behaviors, principles, and customs is known as culture specific knowledge. Current global leaders must be familiar with the business environment in which they work. According to Mcshane & Von Gilnow (2007), this supports their instinct to pinpoint prospects and know the business ability to apprehend those prospects.
...understanding of the multiple diverse cultures out there that are dealt with in everyday international business life.
Each and every culture in the world has its own regulations for communication. One thing people should understand that there is no common form of communication between different cultures. The cross-cultural communication tries to identify how people from different cultures and countries behave, interact and understand the world that surrounds them. The results of the studies are used in the “real life” situations, for example how to find cultural balance between people from different countries within a specific business sphere. The theories found by the scientist has been used and are still used in many fields like business, management and many other spheres of communication between different cultures. As the business world has become a real international place, the use of intercultural knowledge had increased dramatically. All of the international companies need to know what is the best way to structure them, how to manage the staff and the most important how to reach its clients in the best possible way.
In today’s globalized world, multicultural teams accomplish a significant proportion of organizational work. Multicultural teams are formed because they improve organizational effectiveness in the global business environment. As such, multicultural teams offer huge potential to organizations. The most critical and practical challenge multicultural teams face is managing conflicts across members’ national cultural boundaries. Other cultural challenges in multicultural teams include dealing with coordination and control issues, maintaining communication richness, and developing and maintaining team cohesiveness. For multicultural teams to be effective, members must learn to address the challenges that arise from team members’ differing nationalities and cultural backgrounds.
And, culturally diverse entities may confront barriers creating negative outcomes, or, may witness greater innovation by harnessing the strengths of multiple perspectives (Jager & Raich, 2011). Organizations able to embrace diversity foster an environment conducive to employees sharing of ideas, allotting the organization to benefit from the open exchange and collaboration of employees (Lambert, 2016). Bhasin and Kaushik (2013) identify the importance of recognizing cultural influence as more than just national heritage, but also religious, gender, ethnic, and regional
Intercultural communication within an organization is an opportunity to find benefits, and to strengthen the organizational culture, however, this is not a concept that can be easily managed, only leaders that understand the need of intercultural communication, and that value diversity in the workplace, can transform and define the appropriate methodologies and metrics to effectively implement such intercultural communication in the workplace, ensuring effective communication that can be translated to economic profits due the synergies generated by its diverse