Cultural Diversity & Communication in the Workplace

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Workplaces in the United States are becoming increasingly diverse due to the advent of globalization. Diversity in workplace happens because of differences in gender, age, language, sexual orientation, marital status, cultural background, nationality, ethnicity, etc amidst the people in the workplace. Diverse workforces are a big advantage to the organization because of the rich variety of resources they bring. But tapping out the best in the diversified human resources, needs management, and that is what diversity management in workforces is all about. In a world as complex as ours, each of us is shaped by many factors, and culture is one of the powerful forces that acts on us.

Anthropologists Kevin Avruch and Peter Black explain the importance of culture this way: “…One’s own culture provides the “lens” through which we view the world; the “logic”… by which we order it; the “grammar”… by which it makes sense” (Avruch and Black, 1993). In other words, culture is central to what we see, how we make sense of what we see, and how we express ourselves. Thus we find that culture is the root of communication challenges.

Every person is engaged in the process of communication in homes, workplaces and in other places. However, all communication is not effective and communication is a difficult process in the increasingly diverse environment of the global place. This is mainly due to cultural differences between individuals and between various communities. Culture refers to a group or community to which we belong that affects the way we perceive the world.

It could be groups such as gender, race or national origin or it could be groups to which we get connected through our worldly experiences. The influence of culture is very powerful and affects the way we approach problems, how we view situations, how we participate in groups and communities. History is a critical piece of culture and knowledge of history generally helps us to understand ourselves and one another better. By interacting with various groups in our society, one can open channels for cross-cultural communication.

Suganya is an Indian software engineer who is on deputation in Los Angeles, California. She works in an American company based in Bangalore India and has just arrived in the United States on a project. When she arrives at the workplace, she finds that she is the only woman in that office. The manager, an American, sees her identity papers and extends a warm welcome to her. She is nervous as he offers his hand in a handshake.

She can feel her palms go cold during the handshake. Noticing how nervous she was, the manager calls to Suresh, an Indian working in the office. He asks him to help Suganya settle down well. Suresh introduces Suganya to key figures in the office and explains the nature of her work. The next day, when the team leader comes and gives her more instructions, she finds herself unable to follow because though she knew English, the American accent made it sound different. She has to lean on Suresh for further clarification. After office, she spent some time with him asking him further details regarding the office and American culture.

Later she is surprised when Suresh gives her a hug and says “you will feel better tomorrow”. She has never been hugged and did not like it at all. She did not expect it from Suresh, an Indian. The next day, she preferred to be silent and kept to her work. Most of the people were silently working. This she felt was odd as her office in India buzzed with friendly sounds all the time. She interpreted it as coldness and thought that Americans were cold distant people.

A few more days later, she ran into a problem in her work. She had to contact her colleagues. She hoped somebody would help her if she just looked around. It always happened so in India, where females were catered to very well by male colleagues. Here, to her consternation, no one noticed or bothered about her furtive glances. She had to go to Suresh and ask him for help. He guided her to some American teammates and requested them to help her out. Immediately a few people surrounded her, took charge of her computer and helped her find out what the problem was. She was really grateful to them and could see that they were not cold people after all.

This case amply illustrates the cross-cultural differences at play in the work place. Americans are a silent people in the workplace who do not engage in small talk at the workplace. Suganya interprets it as aloofness initially. Suganya is not comfortable as an only woman in a male environment. This is due to her traditional bringing up in India. Next, she is uncomfortable shaking hands with a man because in India, girls were not supposed to shake hands with men. She is unable to follow the American accent in the language. All these are differences due to culture.

In a study titled “Cultural Values and Communication Online” (Warden et al, 2005), it has been found that there are differences in values and behavior different cultures in online communication as well. Chinese students tend to post fewer messages than Southeast Asians and both these groups tend to post fewer messages than Westerners. (Warden et al, 2005). There is an interesting study by Barbara Sawer, Ed.D., Oregon Outreach project evaluator, titled “Cultural Values”.

This is actually an excerpt from her paper, Evaluating Latino Outreach Programs with Attention to Cultural Factors, presented at the Annual Conference of the American Evaluation Association, November 2000. She says that in order to work effectively with any ethnic group, educators need to be aware of values in their own culture as well as sensitive to differences in other cultures (Sawer, 2000). William B. Gudykunst of California State University, in his book titled “Bridging differences: Effective Intergroup Communication” says that factors related to our group memberships (e.g. inaccurate and unfavorable stereotypes of members of other cultures and ethnic groups) can cause us to misinterpret the messages we receive from members of those groups.(Gudykunst, 2005).

There are at least five barriers to accurate communication of organization initiatives in a multicultural workplace: language differences, less articulate and more emotional nature of nonverbal communication, distortion of meanings due to cultural stereotypes, tendency to evaluate people by what others say and presence of a high level of anxiety that can distort meanings. Managing diversity is a complex task that requires understanding of human relations as well.

Ineffective communication of key objectives results in confusion, lack of teamwork, and low morale. When employees come from all around the world it is important that their contributions are left untapped due to language and cultural differences (Ribbink, 2004). David Cane, a manager at a U.S.-based scientific publishing house has implemented a policy where any projects that he assigns has to be reverse-specified by the assignee, meaning that they will write specifications for the assignment and they will review these together before the actual project is embarked upon. He explains that in this way “everyone is clear what the requirements are and what the results should be.”

The contribution of immigrants in the U.S. workforce is increasing and they bring with them varied sets of knowledge and skills that is invaluable to business. The challenge is to ensure that communication problems don’t keep these sources of business benefit from being tapped effectively. Seven steps communication strategies that may be followed in the workplace to counter cultural differences are:

Analyze the employees and their culture and find the best way to communicate a message.
International employees must be trained early and often.
Employees must also be trained in understanding the significance of diversity.
Mentors may be assigned and it is best if the spouses of the employees are also included in the integration process. The issue is especially important for foreign workers with different cultural expectations.
Practicing open-door communication can encourage employees to directly contact the head.
Jargon and slang must be avoided in official communications.

These are some of the strategies that might be used to counter communication problems in the workplace due to cultural differences.

Bibliography

Avruch, Kevin and Peter Black, “Conflict Resolution in Intercultural Settings: Problems and Prospects,” in Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice: Integration and Application, edited by Dennis Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.

Barbara Sawer, Ed.D., Oregon Outreach project evaluator and excerpted from her paper, Evaluating Latino Outreach Programs with Attention to Cultural Factors, presented at the Annual Conference of the American Evaluation Association, 2000. Web.

Gudykunst, B. William (2005). Bridging Differences: Effective Intergroup Communication. Fourth Edition, Sage Publications. Web.

Henderson, George (1994). Cultural Diversity in the Workplace: Issues and Strategies. Praeger Publishers. Westport, CT.

Ribbink, Kim (2003). Seven Ways to Better Communicate in Today’s Diverse Workplace – Seven Tips for Communicating In Today’s Diverse Workplace. Harvard Management Communication Letter. Published in Working Knowledge for Business Leaders. Web.

Warden, A. Clyde; Chen, F. Judy; and Caskey, D’Arcy (2005). Cultural Values and Communication Online. Business Communication Quarterly. Vol. 68, No. 2. Web.

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Cultural Diversity & Communication in the Workplace

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