Managing Cultural Diversity in the Workplace

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Alternative Solutions
Solution Selection
Conclusion
Reference List

Abstract

The goal of the US health department is to protect the welfare of all Americans. It also aims at improving their safety. To achieve these noble concerns, the department has employed people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

While this strategy has the advantage of providing an opportunity for the department to gain from diverse knowledge bases and talents to aid in achieving its key aims and objectives, cultural diversity creates multiplicity disagreements, which can hinder the department from gaining from the merits of employing culturally diverse employees.

This paper identifies cultural diversity disputes as a significant problem that warrants inquiry at the department of health. It holds that while the department’s leaders may have the option of mitigating such clashes by reducing the diversity composition of the department, complying with the concerns of the quality of life and social justice renders such an option inappropriate.

The paper proposes the introduction of policies for diversity conflict resolution, the creation of conflict mitigation and resolution committees, and ensuring that the department transforms through the adoption of transformational leadership style.

The solutions are expected to fight cultural diversity problems at the US department of health. After discussing the problem of diversity management, the paper selects transformational leadership, with a particular emphasis on the communication aspect, as the best solution to the problem.

Introduction

The US health department employs people from diverse backgrounds. This recruitment strategy exposes it to the critical challenge of managing its workforce diversity. In this paper, the term diversity refers to the discrepancies that are witnessed in individuals who work in any association.

Such differences may involve parameters such as their gender, race, community values, age, sexual affiliation, income levels, work experience, parental status, religious beliefs, ethnicity, religion, and physical abilities among others (Pitts, 2006). Workforce diversity management encompasses the development of an enabling and supportive environment for all people, regardless of their cultural diversity differences, to ensure that they can optimally contribute to the success of US health ministry.

Since the goal of diversity management is to align all employees with the department’s vision and objectives, integration of leadership is critical in reducing its negative impacts on the ministry’s performance. Leadership is essential in all organizations that use people to achieve their goals, mission, aims, and objectives. It involves influencing other people to facilitate the achievement of a given goal.

Leaders plan, organize, direct, and steer other people towards the attainment of common mutual objectives and goals. Leadership occurs through the interaction of three primary contexts, namely leaders, followers, and the situation that prompts the deployment of leadership skills. Leaders need to possess qualities such as the ability to listen effectively to others, the capacity and willingness to speak in an honest and kind manner, the ability to be approachable, and the capacity to make well thought out decisions.

Since listening constitutes a key feature of communication, this paper considers the issue of communication an important transformational leadership aspect that is necessary for resolving cultural diversity problems within the US health sector.

The Problem of Cultural Diversity Management

As organizations diversify, the approaches they deploy to address workforce management issues are critical in influencing their performance in the competitive marketplace. According to Pitts (2006), academicians and organizational leaders have communicated the significance of managing organizational diversity to not only guarantee success but also encourage a culture of innovation and creativity.

Embracing diversity means that leaders need to steer their organizations as heterogeneous, rather than homogenous entities. A homogenous organization is a non-diversified institution while a heterogeneous one comprises an assortment of workers. Many American health agencies are heterogeneous since they employ people of varying backgrounds in terms of race, age, physical abilities, and geographical regions, among others.

According to leadership scholars such as Pitts (2006), effective management of workforce diversity can improve workforce productivity, improve workforce engagement, foster staff absenteeism, and/or increase workforce turnover by about five folds. The American ministry of health emphasizes the need to improve employee performance in a bid to increase the quality and speed of service delivery. Therefore, managing its diversity is critical for its continuous success.

An increasing number of scholarly studies reveal a direct correlation between employee attendance and job performance. Another positive relationship is evident between workers’ dedication and the perception of being valuable resources of an organization through the appreciation of their diversity.

For instance, McMillan-Capehart (2006) says that organizational leaders who fail to understand that women and minority employees are valuable resources for achieving success experience reduced productivity. This claim infers that mismanagement of workforce diversity translates into increasing the health agencies’ operations costs.

In this context, organizations that do not support diversity in their workplaces are likely to plunge into expensive lawsuits and/or out-of-court settlements for cases such as stereotyping, discrimination, and harassment that result from poor management of various culturally diverse talent tools. Such organizations are susceptible to costs that relate to employee replacement and training (McMillan-Capehart, 2006).

In a situation where a workplace has many workers from various cultures or a bigger percentage of females, it becomes an issue, especially when the heads want to resolve the disparities among employees without causing unwarranted friction in the day-to-day employee relations. In this context, managing workforce diversity becomes crucial (McMillan-Capehart, 2006).

The development of cultural diversity management knowledge by today’s leadership professionals is critical, considering that many of the issues that people encounter in the work environment do not prompt any tolerance to the differences that characterize different workers. Such issues can only be addressed using effective strategies for leading diverse employees.

Many of the problems that cause friction in the workplace are mainly attributed to the viewpoints of marginalized and the mainstream workforce disparities. This friction is normally worse in an organization whose labor force mainly comes from a common ethnic group or race.

The most pressing stalemate issues that pertain to workforce diversity are associated with women mistreatment in the workplace (Ollapally & Bhatnagar, 2009). In this context, the concept of workforce diversity management is vital. Hence, today’s organizational leaders need to adopt the concept. Race and gender determine the approaches that leaders establish to handle diverse employees.

Where a minority group considers itself more oppressed or discriminated, it is apparent that it may consider taking steps that are unhealthy to the performance of an organization. This situation is perhaps evident in many health facilities since many minority groups are aware of their rights. They acknowledge the existence of strict organizational codes of conduct and regulations that have been formulated to govern behaviors within the US ministry of health.

In this context, the possession of leadership knowledge about leading diverse employees is critical in ensuring that leaders achieve their job mandates. From this dimension, leading a diversified labor force has a chief contribution in terms of aiding people who work within the US health sector to connect with one another in an attempt to further the department’s goals and/or create positive changes within the corporate community.

The health segment’s leadership has a proactive role to play in ensuring proper control and monitoring of cultural diversity to avoid conflicts of interest among the minority and majority groups of workers. Leaders cannot conduct this noble task if they are not fully cognizant of the relevance and importance of managing cultural diversities in the health ministry.

How can they realize this dream? The next section discusses the various alternative solutions that the health ministry leaders can deploy to lead their diverse employees effectively to ensure that the sector attains its goal and objectives of delivering quality and speedy services to all people.

Alternative Solutions

The Creation of a Conflict Mitigation and Resolution Committee

Clashes emerge in all organizations, including the health sector. Although it is important to minimize the negative cultural diversity conflicts, it is necessary to encourage positive conflicts. Organizations, individuals, and even work teams require constructive conflicts for them to grow.

By engaging in opposing discussions, especially on mechanisms for accomplishing specific outcomes, opportunities are created for people from diverse cultural backgrounds to participate in activities that benefit the entire organization. Consequently, mitigation and resolution of negative conflicts via conflict resolution and mitigation committees can help the health section to ensure that cultural diversity becomes a resource that it can tap to guarantee a sustainable positive performance.

In this sense, the outcomes of decisions that are made following engagements in constructive conflicts are in favor and accommodative of all key stakeholders’ interests within an organization. Destructive conflicts make people in an organization uncomfortable. In some situations, escalated conflicts have the implication of compelling people to quit working (McMillan-Capehart, 2006).

Organizations that experience destructive conflicts encounter challenges of reduced work morale, many cases of labor turnover, and a high rate of burnout. This observation suggests that organizational leaders should focus on eliminating destructive conflicts while at the same time, encouraging constructive conflicts in the effort to attain excellent performance through conflict resolution committees.

From the above expositions, setting conflict resolution and mitigation committees sounds an imperative strategy for creating rectification channels in case people who work at the health ministry experience destructive conflicts because of their cultural diversity. However, in some cases, two people may not like each other, right from the beginning, due to diversity and other personality differences.

Such committees’ mandates may only be limited to areas of departmental interest where diversity differences contribute to low employee outputs. Therefore, some aspects of conflicts such as personality clashes, which do not directly relate to cultural diversity’s effect on productivity, may not be captured in the suggested resolution mechanisms.

Personality clashes contribute to workplace disputes due to differences in beliefs, values, and approaches to handling problems. When people have difficulties in appreciating and embracing other people’s work methods, clashes emerge. Considering that people have different capacities, something that cannot be harmonized, some stereotyped people’s way of doing work may go unaddressed.

The committee members are also drawn from culturally diverse populations. This strategy, which may lead to the normalization of some work approaches, attracts clashes among employees, especially where such methods are considered acceptable in the society from where the committee members and employees come.

Establishing Policies for Guiding and Training Employees to Embrace Cultural Diversity

The desired organizational leadership directions are guided by an industry’s best practices. Consequently, the department of health needs to establish policies for guiding and training employees on the importance of embracing cultural diversity. The US Government Accountability Office’s (2005) report on employee diversity management is a significant source of such practices.

The agency has established various cultural diversity management practices, which may also be utilized at the US health ministry. They include the commitment of the top leadership, inclusion of diversity in organizational strategic plans, linking diversity to organizational performance, measuring the contribution of diversity to organizational success, succession planning, recruitment, training on diversity, and diversity accountability (The US Government Accountability Office, 2005).

Succession development is a premeditated procedure that is aimed at classifying and establishing capacity-building tactics for the department’s anticipated management expansion. It avails equal opportunities for all employees, irrespective of their cultural diversity differences.

Diversity training involves mitigating the problem of cultural diversity through educating culturally diverse employees on the relevance of embracing the diversity of their workmates for collective organizational performance. Linking diversity to performance implies the appreciation that culturally diverse employees yield greater productivity at the individual and departmental levels. The inclusion of diversity in strategic planning means alignment of organizational strategic plans with the talent potential of culturally diverse employees.

Adopting Transformational Leadership

In the health department, leaders are the vision carriers. They ensure that all employees reason and/or do their work as one entity that comprises different cultures. Through the adoption of transformational leadership, the department can ensure effectiveness in leading culturally diverse people towards a shared vision.

Effective leadership entails the possession of the ability to influence other people to one’s way of thinking. Polychroniou (2009) confirms that that leadership entails influencing people to do their work by conforming to some established standards. Therefore, effective leadership involves complex processes that are often characterized various actors (followers and leaders) whose interaction results in a range of possible anticipated outcomes (Samad, 2009).

Leaders play a variety of roles, including serving as sources of inspiration, inducing organizational change through corporate leadership, and serving as the main source of organizational power and visions (Samad, 2009). Therefore, through leadership, the health department can create a culture that appreciates people’s diversity.

This appreciation requires ardent communication of the fact that cultural differences do not amount to any cultural advantage while doing work at the department. All the work is done in accordance with standards and procedures that are unique to the department. Considering that transformational leaders are great communicators, transformational leadership is an appropriate headship style that can deal with the diversity problems at the department.

The performance of an organization depends on the effectiveness of its communication strategies. For instance, a reduction of workplace diversity clashes can incredibly increase employee productivity. Myatt (2012) reckons that poor communication directly correlates with escalated work disputes since many of the clashes within an organization are caused by lack of insufficient information, broken communication, or even when cases of half-truths are encountered.

This observation suggests that precision, accuracy, the timing of communication, and the contribution of cultural diversity differences to the department of health can help in resolving negative conflicts that emanate from culturally diverse employees.

Transformational leaders have an ability to eliminate all volatile situations such as the problem of cultural diversity within an organization. This problem hinders the collective employee performance. The objective is to not only realize common goals but also meet the targets for various activities within the organization (Ruderman, Hannum, Leslie, & Steed, 2006).

Successful transformational leaders motivate and inspire other people. They also foster the development of a positive work environment where all people as considered valuable sources of organizational success, despite their cultural differences and ways of thinking. Transformational heads ensure that any challenging departmental opportunities that may exist within a heterogeneous organization are turned around to strengths.

Anand and Udaya (2010) support this view by adding that transformational leadership skills are important in encouraging work motivation. Such leaders ensure that subordinates play their roles in increasing organizational effectiveness. Without effective leadership, the department of health can suffer from a blurred vision that lacks a clear focus on the desired future of the organization.

Solution Selection

Among the discussed alternative solutions to the problem of cultural diversity at the US health department, transformational leadership is selected as the best strategy. The leadership style not only encourages trust but also builds workers’ confidence in a leader. Basri, Rusdi, and Sulaeman (2014) assert that the leadership theory aims at changing internal work values and structures to build faith with an objective of eliciting increased work proficiencies.

Cultural diversity is crucial for the success of the department of health. It allows the generation of diverse ideas, which may lead to increased creativity and innovation levels. To this extent, transformational leadership may find application in the process of addressing the problem of cultural diversity at any health facility.

According to the US Government Accountability Office (2005), the best practices, which are discussed under solution two are fundamental to any effective leadership within an organization. Leaders are charged with the responsibility of resolving challenges that are witnessed when an organization tries to align employees (followers) with the established vision.

Therefore, solution one also requires the input of leadership to mitigate cultural diversity disputes. Hence, transformational leadership comprises the most effective solution to the challenges of cultural diversity in any health facility. Deploying the transformational leadership theory to change the internal structure of the department of health may foster fair distribution of tasks. The move also reduces work strain and stress that lead to burnout.

Through the transformation of the department of health’s value systems to ensure that people regard cultural diversity as strength, rather than a problem, people can learn to work homogeneously, irrespective of their cultural inclinations. Indeed, globalized organizations have now transformed to embrace cultural diversity.

This strategic initiative is supported by the belief that employing people from diverse backgrounds gives an organization a competitive advantage. For instance, an organization develops the capacity to tap and benefit from the full range of talents and knowledge bases (Johnson & Keddy, 2010).

Focusing on diversity as a strategic initiative for an organization is crucial since it enhances growth through the increment of product range through innovation that is brought up by people who possess different work capabilities. However, diversity follows the bringing together of people from different cultural backgrounds (Gramberg, 2005).

This claim underlines the importance of using transformational leadership tactics such as communication to manage any emerging disagreements. Proper communication eliminates the necessity of monitoring and controlling workers, as suggested in solution two. It focuses on influencing other people to work as a team to realize an organization’s vision.

Indeed, the aspect of influencing people creates a long-term solution compared to controlling and monitoring, which are short-term in nature. To resolve cultural diversity-related problems, the Institute of Leadership and Management (2007) reveals how the HRM is essential in helping to create a common organizational culture where employees understand that different people have different abilities and beliefs and that these differences should not be permitted to influence the way people relate with one another.

Alternatively, diversity differences need not to lead to personality clashes in workplaces. The HR segment, which is charged with the role of ensuring that employees work in harmony without conflicting situations that lead to personality clashes, should deploy diversity to enhance success by treating any conflict that arises from cultural differences frictions as an act of indiscipline and negligence when it comes to complying with the established organizational culture.

While this role may be well established in the outline of the mandates of the HRM at the department of health, communication, which is an essential aspect of transformational leadership, may hinder the success of the initiatives that the HR deploys to deal with personality conflicts.

Communication is a significant cause of workplace disputes, including cultural diversity-related clashes. It can deliver tangible products, as opposed to being a soft component of the leadership roles. Communication improves consumer satisfaction. Besides enhancing the quality of service delivery, it also fosters employee retention and satisfaction (Lee, 2008).

However, improper communication is an ingredient of workplace disagreements. In an organization that employs people from diverse backgrounds, communication is the tool that is deployed to harness employees’ individual differences in an effort to align them with a common organizational culture that is in tandem with the organization’s aims, missions, goals, and objectives (Johnson & Keddy, 2010). This observation suggests that communication is also essential in ensuring effective resolution of cultural diversity clashes.

Communicating adequately and effectively is crucial when it comes to eliminating workplace issues. The Institute of Leadership and Management (2007) reveals how the availability of adequate and unambiguous information helps employees to support and/or do what is within their capacity to ensure that organizations succeed in the direction that is set by their respective leaders and managers.

In this sense, the goal of an effective communication program in an organization is to foster the change of employees’ behaviors and their perception towards other employees. Failure to maintain excellent communication channels may create personality clashes. This situation reveals why transformational headship is crucial in an organization that wishes to induce a culture of diversity tolerance.

Communication entails sharing success information by translating the essential business objectives and goals into terms that employees can understand easily (Johnson & Keddy, 2010). In response to such communication strategies, employees are engaged, aligned, and ready to work collectively towards driving organizational success.

In fact, when communication fails, misunderstanding arises. The situation leads to the failure of employees to execute tasks as desired by the leaders. Such atmosphere may also lead to cultural diversity clashes.

Conclusion

The US department of health needs to understand the benefits of adopting a multicultural environment that can tolerate workforce diversities. Indeed, the United States recognizes the need for the cultural tolerance to build a cohesive nation. Through cultural tolerance, the American ministry of health gains immensely from the increased productivity, thanks to the contribution from the diverse employees.

Diversity increases the ability of the ministry to protect the health of all Americans. Ensuring a multicultural health department calls for the adoption of an effective leadership style. The top-down headship approach is the best since it allows the participation all staff members in the decision-making process. Transformational leadership is also central since it appreciates the relevance of workforce diversity from moral and business perspectives.

For the American health sector to achieve this goal, the department essentially deserves to change its values to increase its commitment to the promotion of cultural diversity within the work environment. The department needs to transform to become a segment that reaps from the different cultures of its workforce. It should not allow the cultural background of an employee to define his or her performance levels.

Transformational leadership addresses the unique challenges that the individual employees experience in the work environment. Although different strategies or alternative solutions have been suggested to resolve the cultural diversity problem at the department of health, this paper has selected transformational leadership as the best solution.

This choice has been supported by the fact that possible recommendations such as solutions 1 and 2 integrate the perceptive of transformational leadership in a multicultural organization. The integration of diverse cultures for people to operate harmoniously requires effective communication of organizational goals. Leaders need to clarify that an employee’s culture does not hinder his or her performance.

Considering that transformational leaders are great communicators and change drivers, transformational leadership is the best choice for resolving cultural diversity problems, especially where such problems lower productivity in the American health sector.

Reference List

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