What is cultural diversity?
According to Gay (2003), culture diversity refers to a situation where an organization is comprised of employees from different backgrounds. These include racial, ethnic, gender, as well as nationality. This diversity, if properly managed, can result to a number of advantages to the organization as they contribute to the knowledge base of the company.
Management of cultural diversity entails recognition and appreciation of culture diversity and ensuring that culture diversity is incorporated in all the core operations of the organization. This is meant to ensure that all the employees are able to contribute towards the success of the organization.
Importance of managing cultural diversity in the hospitality industry
Tanke (2000) adduces that those organizations, which effectively manage cultural diversity, benefit in terms of increased ability to consistently meet their targets in terms of profitability objectives. Additionally, effective management of cultural diversity helps an organization to reduce employee turnover.
Management of cultural diversity in an organization has been known to reduce conflicts within an organization, which has the effect of increasing its productivity. In addition, management of cultural diversity helps an organization to comply with government regulations, which are meant to eliminate discrimination.
An organization which effectively manages cultural diversity is able to attract new customers, enter into new markets, and has the ability to harness new business opportunities, which would otherwise be impossible in an organization where all the employees come from the same homogenous culture.
It has also been postulated that organizations which promote culture diversity are in a better position to attract talented employees. This is because they are able to draw from a wider pool as compared to those organizations which are culturally homogenous.
How can this give a competitive advantage?
According to Cox (1994), cultural diversity has a way of availing to the company different skills and knowledge from the employees who come from different cultural backgrounds. Additionally, it provides a wider pool from which the company is able to draw talented employees. This can lead to enhanced creativity and innovation, which could be instrumental in enhancing customer service in the organization.
Are there disadvantages with managing cultural diversity?
Management of culture diversity brings with it a challenge to the management. This is because it has to look for ways of ensuring that the minority ethnic groups are not discriminated against. At the same time, it might result into clashes between the various cultures at the work place regarding issues such as dressing and language problems.
This paper is going to discuss people management, knowledge management, managing culture shock and managing recruitment as effective methods of ensuring the success of the management of cultural diversity in the workplace (Kirkbride 1994).
Discussion and findings
Laroche (2003) notes that since culture diversity seems to be increasing with time, it is important that organizations come up with effective means of managing this diversity with a view to making them more competitive. Globalization has a profound impact on all the organizations in terms of increased competition from the foreign based companies as well as the need to be competitive on the international scene.
This implies that the organizations must come up with ways of making sure that cultural diversity is managed in the right way with a view of enhancing their competitiveness. This will help the company in attracting as well as retaining talented employees.
Management of cultural diversity can help an organization to capitalize on the advantages of diversity. This can help in adding value to the company as well as giving it a competitive advantage over those organizations which do not embrace diversity (Lessem 1998).
This is because if the organization makes every employee feel valued irrespective of their cultural background, it will foster an environment which enhances productivity. Effective management of culture diversity can help in providing an impetus for business growth as well as improving customer service, which can come as a result of harnessing the potential of the culturally diverse workforce.
The company can utilize the various attributes, which come about as a result of culture diversity within an organization. They include: language skills, cultural sensitivity and the knowledge of business networks in their home countries.
All these attributes can help an organization to gain a competitive edge on their rivals. This is because the organization will be in a better position to market their goods and services to an increasingly diverse clientele in the home country as well as in the global market place (Henderson 1994).
It has been pointed out that the ethnic minorities would prefer to work for organizations which value diversity. At the same time, the ethnic minorities would prefer to buy goods and services from organizations which are sensitive and responsive to their cultural needs. Other benefits which can accrue from a diverse workforce are enhanced creativity and problem solving skills.
This is supported by the assertion that a diverse workforce is likely to be more creative than a homogenous one. This is because employees from different cultural backgrounds are able to bring different perspectives during the process of problem solving. This can help the organization to come up with new products as well as devise strategies to make their products more marketable than those of its competitors (D’Almeida 2007).
In order for the organization to be able to tap the benefits which result from cultural diversity, there are two main issues that they will need to look into namely: people management and knowledge management.
People management
Bono and Heijden (2011) contends that under people management, the challenge for the organization is to ensure that they benefit from the diversity of the employees in order to achieve the objectives of the organization. The management should appreciate the differences which come with diversity and ensure that the unique traits which the employees bring with them are harnessed for the good of the entire organization.
In order for the organization to be in a position to benefit from diversity, there are two issues which they have to look into. These are some of the issues which can hinder effective management of cultural diversity.
Firstly, the management should find a way of dealing with ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism promotes the notion that one’s culture is superior to other people’s culture. This notion is detrimental in that it promotes a monoculture which advocates for one way of doing things.
This brings about the perception that diversity hampers the effective functioning of the organization. This makes it difficult for the organization to benefit from having employees who are drawn from different cultural backgrounds (Phillips and Gully 2011).
According to Daft and Marcic (2005), the second issue that the organization will need to look into is the glass ceiling. This can be described as an invisible barrier which is erected in order to prevent employees from the minority groups from ascending to top level management positions in the organization. These two issues namely- ethnocentrism and glass ceiling have a way of frustrating effective management of cultural diversity.
As a way of managing diversity in the organization, the management should ensure that there is genuine commitment from all members in the organization in promoting culture diversity. At the same time, the management should ensure that all the structures of the organization are supportive of the whole idea of culture diversity. The structures should be such that they are supportive of fairness in recruitment.
According to Laroche and Rutherford (2007), the management should involve all the employees in ensuring that the goals of management of cultural diversity are achieved. This is because without the participation and involvement of all the employees, the objectives of the management of cultural diversity cannot be achieved. The management should also carry out training programs, which are meant to equip the employees with skills.
These skills can help them to be competent when dealing with people from different cultural backgrounds. This would help the employees to be aware of their prejudices, which can hinder effective cooperation with people from diverse cultural backgrounds and thereby impact on their productivity and that of the entire organization.
Knowledge management
It has been claimed that knowledge sharing is severely affected in multicultural settings due to language barriers. At the same time, if the problem of language barrier is not solved by use of an interpreter to facilitate communication, a lot of valuable information may be lost in the process. This problem can partly be solved by encouraging the employees to learn different languages which are used in the workplace.
In order to encourage information sharing, the organization should provide a friendly environment which facilitates free flow of information. More importantly, the management should demolish all the barriers which can hinder effective communication in the organization (Özbilgin and Syed 2010).
Managing culture shock
For the effective management of cultural shock, the management should motivate the employees to learn about the new culture. This can help them in adjusting to the new culture. The management should also ensure that they have realistic expectations from the employees who are being inducted into the organization. The management should also ensure that it does not glorify one culture at the expense of all the others.
This can have the effect of assuring news employee that their contribution will be appreciated despite coming from a different cultural background. The management should ensure that the employees are provided with opportunities where they are able to interact outside the work environment in order to break down the inhibitions that may hinder effective communication (Moran, Harris and Moran 2010).
Managing recruitment
According to Baumueller (2007), recruitment is a very important function which has the effect of affecting the performance of an organization. It can be argued that ineffective recruitment strategy has a way of adversely affecting the performance of the organization. The recruitment strategy should ensure that the company is able to net talented employees, who can contribute positively in ensuring the success of the organization.
This is very important since the business environment is increasingly becoming very competitive and the quality of the employees in a particular organization will determine the ability of the company to operate in this competitive environment. Towards this end, the management should ensure a non-discrimination policy which allows them to draw employees from different cultural backgrounds.
Conclusion and recommendations
It can be seen from the preceding arguments that the management must devise effective means of harnessing the potential of diverse cultures, if they are to remain competitive in the current globalization era. This is because effective management of cultural diversity can help an organization to attract talented employees from diverse cultural backgrounds.
This has an effect of spurring on innovation and problem solving skills in an organization. Ultimately, this can help the organization to be able to come up with new products or take advantage of new business opportunities since they can utilize the various skills of their employees who are drawn from different backgrounds.
More importantly, the organization can harness this diversity in order to improve their customer service which can have the effect of enabling the company to increase its market share. In addition, the management should also appreciate that each individual possess unique attributes which if properly harnessed can lead to increased productivity in the organization.
Therefore, the main thrust of the management of cultural diversity should be to ensure that all the individuals in the organization are motivated to be productive, irrespective of the differences in cultural backgrounds.
In order to ensure that the organization consistently benefits from a culturally diversified work force it should be seen to be committed towards ensuring that all the employees, despite their cultural backgrounds, are provided with opportunities for growth.
In addition, the management should also ensure that all the structures in the organization are flexible enough in order to be supportive of the employees who come from diverse cultural background.
In current competitive business environment it can be argued that the employees are the most important component in ensuring the success of any organization. More importantly, the organization should ensure that it has well qualified and skilled employees.
This can only come about if the organization widens the pool from where they can draw their employees. This can only come about if the organization is able to embrace cultural diversity during the recruitment process.
Reference List
Baumueller, M 2007, Managing cultural diversity: an empirical examination of cultural Networks and organizational structures as governance mechanisms in multinational corporations, International Academic Publishers, Hochfeldstrasse.
Bono, S and Heijden, B 2011, Managing Cultural Diversity, Meyer & Meyer Verlag, Publishers. Auckland.
Cox, T 1994, Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research and Practice, Berrett- Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco,
D’Almeida, C 2007, The effects of cultural diversity in the workplace, ProQuest Information and Learning Company, Ann Arbor.
Daft, R and Marcic, D 2005, Understanding Management, Thomson Learning Inc, Mason.
Gay, K 2003, Cultural Diversity: Conflicts and Challenges, Scarecrow Press, Lanham.
Henderson, G 1994, Cultural diversity in the workplace: issues and strategies, Quorum Books, Westport.
Kirkbride, P 1994, Human resource management in Europe: perspectives for the 1990s, Routledge, London.
Laroche, L 2003, Managing cultural diversity in technical professions, Butterworth-Heinemann Publishers, Burlington.
Laroche, L and Rutherford, D 2007, Recruiting, retaining, and promoting culturally different employees, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Burlington.
Lessem, R 1998, Management development through cultural diversity, Routledge, London.
Moran, R Harris, P and Moran, S 2010, Managing Cultural Differences: Global Leadership Strategies for working in a Global World, Butterworth Heinemann Publishers, Jordan Hill.
Özbilgin, M and Syed, J 2010, Managing cultural diversity in Asia, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham.
Phillips, J and Gully, S 2011, Organizational Behavior: Tools for Success, Cengage Learning, Mason.
Tanke, M 2000, Human Resources Management for the Hospitality Industry, Cengage Learning, Belmont.