The culture of an organization is an inherent factor in determining its success; therefore, management should understand the cultural diversity in organizations in order to develop programs that promote unifying organizational values. Most organizations do not develop diversity programs until a problem arises in the organization. Factors that drive formulation of diversity programs include the law and business ethics.
An organization should eliminate cultural diversity to avoid negative publicity from legal suits arising from discrimination on cultural basis. This paper aims to develop a model that will help an organization to investigate and analyze cultural diversity. In addition, the paper will exemplify how to implement results from a cultural training diversity program.
To analyze diversity within an organization, the management should begin by understanding individual employee’s cultures. An individual’s culture comprises internal, external, and organizational dimensions. The internal dimension depends on the individual’s age, race, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, and sexual orientation. The internal dimensions of an individual exemplify through his or her personality.
On the other hand, external dimensions comprise of marital status, parental status, geographic location, personal habits, recreational habits, work experience, religion, educational background, and income. Socialization process and social groups that a person associates with, drive the external dimensions.
Organizational dimensions are subject to the position and roles of an individual an organization. The organizational dimension entails management status, functional level, work content, division or department within the organization that an individual belongs, work location, seniority and union affiliation.
Therefore, to understand the cultural diversity, an organization should classify individuals in groups with similar internal, external, and organization dimension. The dimensions help organizations to identify the values that each group values; therefore, the management can reconcile the values by developing an organization culture that caters for all cultural diversities.
When implementing diversity programs by developing a common vision that takes into account all the cultural groups in organizations, the management should begin in such a way that every employee feels like he or she is part of the organization. Diversity programs are all-inclusive programs that should begin with top management downwards. Cultural diversity audit is pertinent to the process of implementing cultural diversity programs.
The audits help to establish attitudes and perceptions of employees towards minority groups in the organization and employees from a cultural background other their own (Singelis, 1998, p.75).
After the audits, diversity training by external experts should begin by management, then flow down the corporate ladder. Training management should focus on helping the involved parties to understand the legal and economic benefits of appreciating diversity in the organization.
Diversity training programs help employees to appreciate diversity in the organization by looking at the unique contribution that individuals bring to the table. Analysis of diversity should begin during recruitment. By bringing people with diverse cultural backgrounds together, an organization creates a corporate culture rich with diversity, which can be particularly beneficial, especially in businesses that do international clientele.
The training programs help an organization to understand the social and capital contribution that each employee can contribute to the organization. Social contribution refers to the ability by an individual to develop mutual, lasting, and beneficial relationships in the organization while capital contributions stem from an individual’s skills and abilities.
The diversity training programs should use social networking to encourage employee’s from different cultures to interact on a personal level thus creating an appreciation for a culture other than their own (Tierney, 2007, p.82). When employees begin to appreciate different cultures, they develop a positive attitude towards other employees from different cultural background thus reducing cases of discrimination in the organization.
Management should implement diversity programs from recruitment by initiating mentoring programs among people from different cultural backgrounds. Leadership roles should not be relegated to individuals from cultural backgrounds, which seem superior; the organization should take the initiative to give leadership positions to minority groups such as women and the disabled.
This helps other employees to appreciate the social and capital contribution a person can make to the organization in spite of their cultural backgrounds (Chryssochoou, 2004, p.67). Developing diversity groups is another crucial element in developing a rich corporate culture that embraces diversity.
The diverse groups should have a team leader from a minority group in the organization. The diverse groups help employees to network on different platforms thus appreciating diversity.
After implementation of the diversity-training program, management should review the results of the initiative by assessing the rate of turn over among minority groups such as women and the disabled groups in the organization.
In conclusion, cultural diversity can be particularly beneficial in an organization that has diversity training initiative to help management understand benefits of cultural diversity, thus creating a corporate culture that is all-inclusive. Discrimination of minority groups because of religion or gender can cause the organization to get negative publicity due to lawsuits.
Organizations should not wait for a problem to crop up to initiate diversity training. The programs should begin during recruitment to build a rich cultural diversity that can be tremendously beneficial to the organization.
References
Chryssochoou, X. (2004). Cultural diversity: its social psychology. UK: Blackwell Publishers.
Singelis, T. M. (1998). Teaching about culture, ethnicity & diversity: exercises and Planned activities. London: Sage Publications Inc.
Tierney, S. (2007). Accommodating cultural diversity. USA: Ashgate publishers.