Managing a multicultural workforce and multicultural customers - Essay Example

Managing a multicultural workforce and multicultural s (Analytical essay) Introduction Today’s business world is beyond doubt a global village. The countries and businesses all across the globe are competing fiercely in order to increase their share in the world market. Today, the business world has dissolved geographical boundaries and goes beyond national and regional considerations to evolve into a global phenomenon. The multinational corporations operate from their branches and headquarters spread all over the world to expand and enlarge their reach worldwide. This global presence of companies is essentially accompanied by the global presence of their human resource as well as their customer base. The functions of human resource management become more varied and complex when the customers and employees are located around the world. Apart from the factors such as technology, economic systems, legal frameworks and industrial relations, the cultural factors also assume great importance in the managing of a global workforce. And the most prominent manifestation of the cultural challenge is the diversity of modern workforce. Thus the human resource in all transnational business endeavors has become increasingly diverse in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, culture, political views, physical abilities and psychological orientation. This essay aims to explore the thesis that efficient management of a multicultural workforce can serve as a pool of opportunities for businesses that cater to a multicultural customer base. What is Culture? The concept of culture is difficult to define in explicit terms. On a broad and generalized level, culture refers to the set of characteristics and features that defines a group and separates it from other groups. The famous social psychologist Florence Kluckholn has defined culture as “a patterned way of thinking, feeling, and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, and constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts.” (Goethals, 2004, p. 301) The expert organizational scholar Geert Hofstede has described culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes one human group from another” (Hofstede, 1984, p. 21). There is another definition of culture offered by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who states that culture is a “historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.” (Storr, 2013, p. 3) The common element that emerges from all these definitions is the fact that culture is a collection of shared beliefs, values and knowledge. And cross-culture leadership is the art of guiding and influencing the behavior of people who come from diverse cultural backgrounds, with an aim to fulfill the common organizational objectives. (Stogdill, 1974) How does a Multicultural Workforce help in managing Multicultural Customers? The presence of a diverse workforce has a wide range of benefits and opportunities for any business firm. Today’s global economy is a service-driven economy and in such a scenario the interactions between people is the key to expanding the customer base. Moreover, the existence of similar states of mind and opinions between people helps a great deal to facilitate this process in a market where the customer base is getting more and more diverse with the passage time. The series of mergers and acquisitions in the business world has led to vital changes in the modern labour market. This has helped in globalisation of business by enabling business to be carried out with people across the world. A diverse workforce can act as a reservoir of resource by providing a diverse body of talent and a pool of fresh ideas, views and perspectives on work which is essential to bring about long-term success of any business. It also helps the firm to build up its overall capacity by virtue of the gamut of aptitude, experience, information, acumen and imagination of its diverse workforce. With a view to today’s increasingly international business landscape, engaging the services of people belonging to diverse national, ethnic and cultural backgrounds helps in understanding and attending to the needs of diverse markets. Lastly, employing diversity practices enables a company to fulfil its social responsibility as the section of society that reaps the most benefits by this act is the disadvantaged and minority communities. Thus, if judiciously managed, the inherent diversities in the workforce can be utilised as a source of innovation, high performance and competitive advantage in the business world. This will not only fortify the cultural values within the organisation, but also enhance the public image and goodwill of the organisation. What are the Challenges of Managing a Multicultural Workforce? The challenge today is to make organizations more accommodating to diverse groups of people. For the HR managers, it is really difficult task to deal with employees with different set of needs, expectations, interests and values. In such a case, understanding the cultural environment is of utmost importance for both the employees and their managers. The culture of different countries varies a great deal in terms of the basic value systems of their citizens and the forms in which those values are expressed in the social, political and occupational life of the people. Culture can be defined as “a characteristic way of behaving and believing that a group of people in a country or region (or firm) have evolved over time and share” (Briscoe and Schuler, 2012, p. 116) Workforce diversity carries certain cultural implications for HRM. Since none of the HRM theories and practices is universally applicable, the HR managers must understand varying cultural values. Conclusion An ideal diversity management strategy must include articulation of a defined diversity mission with preset objectives, followed by a globalized recruitment policy to employ the most diverse possible pool of competent candidates. This should be complemented by a mentor support system for the minorities and the disadvantaged sections of the workforce to help them come at par with their fellow workers. All this should be continuously monitored and supervised by the diversity councils to track the company’s progress towards the set goals. A very vital component of diversity management is diversity training which is meant to be imparted to managers as well as employees to enable them to raise productivity by properly channelizing their cultural differences. HRM must ensure that the multicultural and multilingual groups can function together to yield effective results. It must also ensure that the communication flows smoothly between employees in the appropriate language and is easily comprehended by the multilingual workforce. Thus workforce diversity, if tempered with effective and flexible leadership styles, can help a great deal to encourage creativity and induce motivation, and lead to improved organisational performance and image. References: Briscoe, D. (2012). International Human Resource Management, 4E. Taylor & Francis Goethals, G. R., Sorenson, G. J., & Burns, J. M. (2004). Encyclopedia of leadership (Vol. 1). Sage publications. Hofstede, G. (1984). Cultures consequences: International differences in work-related values (Vol. 5). Sage publications. Stogdill, R. M. (1974). Handbook of leadership: A survey of theory and research. New York: Free Press. Storr, V. H. (2013). Understanding the culture of markets (Vol. 31). Routledge. Read More