Essay Example on Cultural Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits and Challenges

Introduction

Globalization has seen that cultural diversity at the workplace has grown and increased its intensity. As a result, the differences in race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and sexual differences have been represented in the workplace. Literature found concerning cultural diversity and media reports embarks to defend cultural diversity as something that is beneficial to the people and the society at large. Little attention is focused on the impacts and negative effects of the issue at the workplace (Hofhuis et al. 1). In practice, the benefits of cultural diversity are not well endorsed as they are endorsed in theory. However, some of the benefits of cultural diversity include; in cases where foreign cultures are involved, integration into them is much easier since the knowledge about the culture is readily available. On the other hand, some of the negative effects include; barrier creation, poor communication, and dysfunctional adjustment behaviors.

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Negative Effects

Interpersonal conflicts become a common occurrence in a culturally diverse workplace. People have different perceptions and beliefs concerning several issues in the world. The thought of an iceberg, where only the tip of the iceberg is represented and made visible while the more substantial part is invisible or hidden. Therefore, when the employees involve themselves in an argument. They will say what they know regardless of the effects the matter or the response they give is likely to affect the other employees in the same room engaging in the same argument. The endless dimensions of people, ranging from race to disabled individuals (Boehm, Stephan, and David 56).

However, there are legislation laws that protect such individuals; hence the people may make adjustments on what they say to preserve the way their colleagues will feel and react. Other dimensions, such as culture, religion, and politics, do not show up all the time. Hence, they may be hard to detect whenever they come into play. The dimensions that do not occur regularly and are not common are the ones that determine the diversity of an individual. Hence, it is evident that these dimensions and issues are well hidden. The effects of the problems can only be seen on the surface once they have manifested.

Culturally diverse employees have the probability of being put into groups and made to work together to achieve a goal. For the employees to collaborate and come up with a solution to the problem at hand and achieve the set objectives, they have to be united. But, it is possible for their differences in opinions, values, culture, and other variables to hamper unity development. Researchers discovered that a deep level of similarity in a group setting is a positive sign that the unity in the group will develop, and cohesion will be achieved quickly. On the other hand, a deep level of dissimilarity is negative, and cohesion in the group will become a challenge for most of the individuals (Hofhuis et al. 196). Under these circumstances, especially where there is a deep dissimilarity, the culturally diverse employees will find a reason to get into conflict with one another even when the conflict they find themselves in is not work-related.

For instance, a South Africa employee and an Indian employee may disagree over a cricket match in which South Africa won, and India lost. Which is totally out of the work concept and is not related to work at all, but they will be arguing. On the other hand, a Chinese employee may argue with an American employee over which country is a superpower considering the technological advancements and military might. On the other hand, historical and regional conflicts may arise for the basis from which employees will find something to argue about. Another example is the battle between the Japanese and the Americans, know to as, Battle of Pearl Harbor. Employees may argue and disagree over the battle, and the results of the disagreement will vary from being serious to trivial and then to violent.

Such interpersonal conflicts affect the performance and productivity of the organization. They take a lot of valuable time, and when the arguments slip out of hand and enter the violent perspective, the reputation and image of the organization are ruined. Consumers may start branding the organization as one that cannot manage the differences between their employees. At the same time, the people who will be backing up the losing side will see that they have been sidelined whenever justice will not be given to them in a manner that they want it served. Apart from a reduction in productivity, negative emotions will also develop in the organization amongst the employees, which significantly affects the organization (Sundari 156).

Intercultural communication affects the communication that takes place in an organization. Culture entails communication patterns and symbols. Cultural differences affect the communication process adversely. Communication barriers often exist in culturally diverse work environments. The information that is supposed to be conveyed may be different from the one that is conveyed because of the use of verbal and non-verbal methods that mean the difference in the culture of other employees (Ozturk, Mustafa, and Ahu 800). Workplaces often have stereotypes about different cultures, which interferes with the communication process when the employees interact.

Poor communication results in misunderstandings or inaccurate conveyance of information and slow or lagging of the communication process. Such issues lead to a communication breakdown where the people conveying information assume that the people who are receiving the information understand what it entails, whereas the receiving party is not understanding. Hence, the sent message is not received correctly. Because of the unwilling nature of the people to discuss the issue in the open, the issue is magnified throughout the time leading to a lack of trust. Trust is essential in communication.

Another factor that bars communication is the accent. People of different cultures react differently to people with certain accents that suggest their origin and culture. This results in people making judgments about individuals, paint the mental pictures, and become stereotypic about others from the same culture. People have gone through different experiences, which accounts for the many differences and problems caused whenever people from different cultures interact. This is because people have different cultures, and they believe that their culture is the best while others also believe the same. However, cultural diversity at the workplace can also form avenues for improvement of the employees, employers, and, generally, the whole organization (Shore et al. 181).

Positive impacts

Increased diversity is doing businesses to learn about the cultures, whether they like it or not. Managers require cultural knowledge about their employees for them to manage the people effectively. They need to be aware of the similarities and the differences between the individuals. The importance of this information to managers is to make them sensitive so that their communication process can be useful across diverse cultures (Guillaume et al. 278). A diversity manager has the mandate to understand employees on a personal level so that they can find a way to put the skill, energy, and commitment to improving the organization.

For a manager, understanding the diversity and putting into place an effective management style will improve the performance of the organization while for an employee, understanding the cultural values and beliefs creates a supportive environment that is not supportive of diversity. Hence, the issue of cultural diversity makes human resource managers need to take precautions in the process of dealing with employees and the hiring process to protect the cultural diversities of the people. Hence the issue of cultural diversity makes the employers and resource managers keen when dealing with employees, cultural matters, and how they communicate with the employees (Moon, Kuk-Kyoung 379).

Working with employees from different cultures can help to resolve matters at hand quickly. This is a positive impact since employees from diverse backgrounds have different ways of thinking, and different ways of approaching problems. Hence, the matters at hand are approached from varied perspectives when dealing with employees from diverse cultures. This means that finding a solution for such a matter will become an easy task. Achieving different excellent ways to approach a problem is near impossible to achieve when using employees from the same culture to handle the same matter. Hence, it is recommended to use employees with diverse cultures because they have vast knowledge and different experiences; therefore, they can come up with a solution to problems quickly. Also, working with other employees from diverse cultures helps the employees themselves to overcome the menace of cultural differences. The employees finding a way to deal with the cultural differences helps the organization to minimize interpersonal conflicts that arise from the differences in culture.

Businesses expand to different regions within a country and other countries. In the new areas and the new states, the employees will meet with other employees from different cultures, and they will be forced to not only interact with the employees but with the cultures as well. Coming to another positive impact of cultural diversity at the workplace, it will prevent the employees from experiencing cultural shock in the new environments and overcome the culture change quickly. This is important because large organizations have international expansions and branches to which they send their employees regularly to help with the workload and to spread their creativity and know-how and even for management purposes. With expansions, the employees face challenges in the new environment, like gathering new information about the laws and norms of the society, evaluating available risks, and ways in which the risks can be mitigated (Ozgen et al. 36). A culturally diverse workforce can get information from the other employees in the workforce to navigate the obstacles and develop strategies to overcome the risks.

For instance, an American company that wants to expand to Africa will have a hard time coping with the situation in Africa because of the native population. Therefore, instead of the company going to collect information about Africa and its people, the information can be obtained from the African employees who work in the company about the laws and regulations and the norms of the locality they are headed. Also, the culturally diverse workforce will be more than willing to interact with the Africans, provided that they have learned and perfected in the art of effective communication. On the other hand, if the company is not culturally diverse, it is likely to fail in its establishment or lag because the collection of such information will take some time with the local people and the local authorities.

With the advancements in technology, most of the organizations are going online with their businesses. They are transforming their businesses from the physical, tangible buildings to online companies. Hence, a culturally diverse workplace will help the organization in the transformation process. The diversification helps the organization to develop strategic ways of launching their new products and in developing a sound marketing plan and, importantly, in the assessment, monitoring, and evaluation of new and emerging trends in the new markets. In managing diversity at the workplace, five principles strategies can be put into use. They include; cultural dominance, cultural avoidance, cultural co...