Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Professor Goncalves
9 March 2018
There is no question that cultural diversity in the workplace can bring great success and
growth to a company, especially in a competitive global marketplace. With growing markets and
expanding industries, it is essential for companies to engage in activities that promote and
maintain diversity within their work cultures. However, benefits of cultural diversity come with
great challenges for not only the company, but minorities and other employees as well as
cultures, norms, and communication clash. The Hult International Business School has explored
these benefits and challenges of cultural diversity in the workplace in their article, 13 Benefits
and Challenges of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace in 2017. As we explore these benefits and
challenges touched upon in this article, it is important to also seek of ways to overcome
When working with a team, group, or even a company as a whole, it is always most
beneficial to gather and express the thoughts and insights of each individual involved. One of the
first benefits listed by Hult was that cultural diversity in the workplace, “can inspire creativity
and drive innovation” (Hult). Individuals coming from different backgrounds can bring new
ideas and a multicultural perspective to the table. According to Justin Grey in his article, Study
Finds Diverse, Inclusive Workplaces More Productive, “international studies found that diverse
teams are better able to solve complex problems, exhibit a higher level of creativity and a
broader thought process” (Grey). Additionally, diversity can drive healthy competition within the
workplace, pushing employees to perform even better, ultimately increasing the company’s
Oftentimes, others can think of something that we ourselves would never think of. This
benefits companies greatly, especially when it comes to global marketing competition. With
company would be able to know exactly what a particular market might be looking for because
they may have a better cultural understanding of the target market. In addition, having a diverse
workforce in a global market can increase a company’s awareness of what may or may not be
acceptable in different cultures when it comes to marketing techniques. Slang, spelling, idioms,
and behaviors are not the same in every culture, therefore a company must be extremely careful
when marketing to other cultures, making sure their ads are not offensive. Cultural diversity in
the workplace can help reduce the chance of this taking place.
Within the workplace itself, whether a company has a global market or not, expanding
diversity can allow a company to increase their opportunities of finding and retaining talent,
grow personally and professionally, and broaden the skill bases of employees. For most
management teams, adaptability within their work forces are crucial in unpredictable business
Broad Skill Set Within Any Organization, “someone who can fill numerous voids within an
organization becomes much more valuable than someone limited to just one,
workforce by expanding diversity and increasing adaptability can allow a company to recognize
gaps in changing markets, help a developing company grow in the future, and even reduce
overhead costs within the company by utilizing full skill potentials of employees.
Although diversity can bring great value to a company, it is important to recognize
challenges that this may bring to individuals working for the company as well as the company as
whole itself. Coming from different backgrounds and cultures, individuals’ beliefs, norms, and
communication can clash easily. Language barriers are inevitable if individuals are not fluent in
the dominant language spoken in the workplace, but there are also language barriers from a
communication standpoint where some cultures are not as direct as others. In other words, the
way that we may act and communicate here may be vastly different from how individuals act and
communicate in other countries. For example, individuals from other countries may not be
where they’re from, that type of behavior is frowned upon. In some cultures, kids are taught to
only speak when they are spoken to or stay quiet with their head down around authority figures.
Management teams with diverse work forces must recognize this as a cultural norm for that
individual and not take it offensively. If this is not understood by management, conflict may
arise.
This type of non-verbal communication varies among all cultures. Something as simple
as differing greeting styles may be uncomfortable for those who are not used to the simple
“hello”. For instance, in Europe, it is normal for people to greet each other with a kiss on both
cheeks, whereas in the United States it is normal to shake hands. Differing non-verbal
communication in the workplace can even go as far as different levels of comfortable physical
space between people, making and maintaining eye contact, and hand signals/gesturing. Since
appropriate in a given context) is the key to success at most companies, it is important for
companies to recognize these types of communication barriers between cultures and seek ways
One of the major issues, however, in the workplace with a diverse work force is
stereotyping and prejudice that can lead to major conflicts. Individuals are unable to perform to
their greatest potentials if they do not feel accepted in a given environment. Everyone has their
own implicit bias, which is an unconscious belief in certain racial stereotypes. This, whether we
want to admit we have these beliefs or not, may lead to microagressions which are intentional or
negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership”
(Rivera). In other words, microagressions are hidden messages that devalue a group’s identity
and indicate an inferior status to a particular target group. Some examples of microagressions
may include complimenting someone of a different race on their ability to speak good English
even if they were born in the United States, turning the word “gay” into a word used to describe
something you don’t like, calling a woman leader a “bitch” and calling her male counterpart a
“good leader”, etc. Individuals in a culturally diverse workplace must be aware of what they are
saying as some types of communication may be offensive to minorities and cause conflict.
With several benefits and challenges that come with diversity in the workplace, it is
essential for companies to seek and implement ways to maintain diversity in addition to
satisfaction of employees, the company itself, as well as the industry. Without maintenance and
retention, success with diversity will inevitably fail as having an ethnically diverse work force
can make a company 35% more likely to have financial returns (Hunt). According to Andy
Molinsky in his article, Learning to Speak Up When You’re from a Culture of Deference, “the
first critical thing is to educate employees about these differences, and to develop a solid level of
empathy for the challenges that their employees may face” (Molinsky). Awareness and education
of cultural differences is crucial in understanding how to coexist with a diverse group and
maintain group synergy. In order to achieve this, according to Getting It Right: Understanding
and Managing Diversity in the Workplace at People Scout, is to engage in sensitivity training
that helps employees learn to change their perspectives of others that are different from them,
appreciate the views of others, how to address conflict with offensive behavior, and how to
Additionally, employers can enforce zero-tolerance policies, stay in line with diversity
laws, treat employees as individuals, encourage employees to work in diverse groups, and create
self-managed teams in the workplace in order to encourage and maintain diversity. Frank Dobbin
and Alexandra Kalev, in their article Why Diversity Programs Fail, explain that self-managed
teams can allow people in other functions of the business to work together on projects and
increase actual contact of diverse groups, ultimately correcting cognitive dissonance of prior
beliefs (Kalev). These types of activities allow people to break down stereotypes that they may
have and also encourage those that may not be comfortable speaking up to be more engaged in
the workforce. As more and more individuals have an understanding of cultural diversity and are
comfortable talking about and being educated on the subject, the more successful a company will
be.
In my own experience, I have definitely worked best in diverse groups that are open,
comfortable, and accepting. I have worked for the past two years at Raytheon Company as a
finance intern and I have been able to get the opportunity to join Employee Resource Groups
(ERGs) which are open to the entire company. A few examples of ERGs focus on the LGBTQ
community, women, young workers, African Americans, Asian Pacific, veterans, and individuals
with disabilities. The purpose of these groups are to educate employees about diversity
challenges in the workplace and how to overcome those challenges. They work to share voices of
minorities who have had unique experiences in the workplace, optimize work talent across all
functions, increase diversity awareness and career development opportunities and encourage
community service initiatives that support minority groups. These ERGs have attributed great
success to Raytheon as a whole and attracts diverse talent to the company, ultimately granting
them with a broadened skill set. As a whole, they are able to educate all employees across the
company about diversity challenges and how to overcome them, whether you are part of a
Overall, Hult has highlighted the major benefits and challenges of diversity in their
article, 13 Benefits and Challenges of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace in 2017, that has led
the way to explaining how important understanding of cultural diversity is when working in
teams/groups. If companies are able to overcome not only the challenges mentioned in the
article, but challenges that may arise from everyday work culture, they have a better chance of
being able to improve top talents, employee and company satisfaction, and even increase the
feasibility of decision making. With growing markets and industries, companies are constantly
faced with adaptation and having a diverse work force allows a company to do just that and
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