When it comes to the human resources of a company, it is often said that they are most important assets that belongs to the company. It is said by the President of a successful company that what the company does is take care of its employees, if the employees are intrinsically happy with our care, they will take good care of the customers and when the customers are taken good care of, they will come again and again to us for repeat purchases of goods and services, thus forming a long term relationship, thereby increasing profits and ultimately making the shareholders happy. Thus, it all comes down to the fact that a company’s employees should be first made content which then starts a chain which takes care of all other stakeholders.
A cultural workforce is one which consists of all genders, races, ethnic, sexual orientation, religion and nationality. In the modern corporate world, it is widely believed that having a cultural workforce becomes strength of the company as it gets ideas from people from such various backgrounds (Jackson, 2006).
Culture
The communication pattern in a culturally diverse workforce organization also depends on the kind of organization structure that exists. Does it facilitate communication to enhance effective knowledge management? Structure can be vertical, autonomous or network. All kinds of structures have different implications for how the human resources shares and communicates knowledge. The second issue is that of culture. Different kinds of corporate cultures exist in various organizations (Jackson, 2006). The type of communication that human resource does depends a lot on the culture that exists there. For instance, there is the “clan” culture, where all the human resource exists as a family and believes in sharing information. Then there is the reward system, which can play a huge role in whether knowledge management is effective or not. For instance, if the organization links some rewards to those who are sharing knowledge, then employees are more likely to share knowledge.
Opportunities/Obstacles of being a member of both the dominant culture and an ethnic culture
When an employee is part of the dominant culture, then the opportunity that he has is that he is well aware of the environment and the culture that exists around him and he does not feel like a lost person in a huge organization. When he sees people from different cultures around him, he feels superior and more self-confident than they are. But the obstacle is that he is working in a culturally diverse workforce and he cannot assume that he is superior because the company is going to treat both the employees as same. Moreover, he would also have to learn to communicate with them in their ways (Hoeckiln, 1995).
When an employee is part of the ethnic culture, the opportunity he has is to learn about many other cultures or the dominant culture and the acceptance he gets from the company. But the obstacles can be harassment from other employees of the dominant culture. This might not be allowed in the office but it can happen to him anytime, outside of office or after office hours by his colleagues only.
Issues related to gender, race and economic class
The issues related to gender will be that women usually do not get jobs in the upper hierarchy and there is usually a difference in the pay scale of a man and a woman who are working in the same position, with the man getting more salary than the woman. Women also usually have to take care of their family and they get pregnant, thus losing out on the race in the corporate world against the men.
As far as race is concerned, these differences are slowly vanishing with time but the prejudice has existed since generations and it cannot just be eradicated over night. African-Americans have this schema made about themselves in the American society and thus they are always given low-status jobs.
In terms of the economic class, such differences result in the formation of social groups within a company. For instance, the upper level classes have usually the same interests, interests which would require a lot of money and thus cannot be afforded by the middle class. Thus, such people come together and share interests (Hoeckiln, 1995). A person not belonging to the upper level strata of the society cannot be part of this social group.
The striving towards or resistance of acculturation
Acculturation is when two different cultural groups come together, they exchange their components and features that make their own culture and thus the cultures of both the group might modify a little. But these groups remain an entity of their own. (Armstrong, 2000) In a company where cultural diversity exists and communication patterns have to be highly effective to be able to inculcate everyone in the company, acculturation should be strived for. This is because each culture will learn something from the other, which they highly need to if they have to work together. But then at the end of the day, they remain distinct and separate in their own cultures.
Conclusion
The human resources of any company are its major assets. And any sort of investment in them is never wasted. Today’s company is the most competitive if it has a cultural workforce. And thus ensuring development and effective communication within such a workforce is very essential.
References
- Armstrong, M. (2000) Strategic Human Resource Management: A Guide to Action. Kogan Page
- Hoeckiln, L. (1995). Managing Cultural Differences: Strategies for Competitive Advantage.
- Jackson, John (2006) Human Resource Management. Thomson South-Western