Understanding Cultural Differences in the Workplace Essay

Over the past 100 years, the United States has changed the way it views other cultures including more respect, equality, and freedom for all people. As much as America has grown, has America really changed that drastically? Across the nation and world, cultural differences still exist, misunderstandings continue, and fighting persists. Recent attacks within the United States that are similar to the conflicts between the Japanese and Americans in the early 1900’s include the 9/11 attack, the bombing at the Boston Marathon, and the mass shooting in Orlando.

No culture is growing at a faster pace than the Hispanic population, surpassing African Americans as the largest minority population in the United States. The Hispanic population increased from 35.3 million to 50.5 million in 2010. The intention of this paper is to increase the awareness and understanding of cultural competency and cultural sensitivity toward the Hispanic culture. Cultural competency cannot be overemphasized as it plays an imperative role in the quality of care that is given to different cultures. A culturally insensitive encounter can lead to

Globalization and technological advancement have dictated the need for managers to deal with multiple ethnic groups with different culture in their day to day interactions. According to Kulkarni (2012), cultures play critical roles in individuals, including values, beliefs, humor, worries, fears, hopes, opinions, attachments, and anxieties.

Today’s management in the workforce is composed of all types of people verses thirty years ago when white males held a majority of upper-management positions in companies. These positions are now held by a mixture of ethnic back grounds and women who hold just as many if not more management positions then men. Just by looking at the changes in management demographics shows how important it is for people to understand cultural competency in the workplace. Dr. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. (1999) stated, “Diversity is the collective mixture of whomever we have in our workforce characterized by their differences and similarities” (p.11). Managers and supervisors must understand the characteristics of a diversity mature individual; they also need to be

This diversity audit begins with a background about the company, as well as some important information about key Diversity executives. What will be addressed in the audit are what efforts Johnson & Johnson made to foster diversity competence and understand, what efforts were made in furthering the knowledge or awareness about diversity, what strategies were used to address the challenges of diversity and how will you ensure that your leaders and managers will be committed to the diversity initiative. The audit concludes with a quote from the vice president of recruiting at Johnson and Johnson, as well as

Cultural intelligence assessment will enable the individual to have certain information about himself. It is posited that cultural difference has a greater impact on business effectiveness than we think. That our cultural backgrounds really influence the way we think and act and the way we interpret each others contributions. Our success or failure in communication will depend on the extent at which we understand the different cultural background of the employees and create a fruitful collaboration in situations where cultural differences play a role. To achieve this, we need to act in an appropriate way in multicultural situations coupled with the ability to have an open mind which admits new information and this is curious about

Many corporate are now conducting training on cross-cultural communication for their workforce. In the US, opinions of cultural experts are invited before taking a judicial decision. In short, every person or organization can make small steps to minimize this

You will find that your coworkers can propose treasured insight gained through a wealth of varied life capabilities. Giving listening ears to others in a new way could reveal a solution you would never have discovered on your own. 3. Respect other peoples cultures To create a more culturally sensitive workplace, you have to respect others peoples values and cultures. Give them the space they need to practice their cultural beliefs as far as it does not affect your business negatively.

The importance of understanding cultural, ethnic, and gender differences by managers and professionals in a business setting.

This particular article entitled “Communication for Diversity”, talked about three specific things: Global communication barriers, Gender communication barriers, and tools for managers to overcome barriers. Managing a diverse workforce that is spread widely, presents unique challenges for today’s managers. Despite many obstacles, managers must be sensitive to various cultural values and traditions associated with the employees they manage. For instance, “Japanese culture favors consensus decision-making, taking great effort to engage all members before a decision is reached (1)”, or how Latin Americans use “hierarchical-based decision-making process to show authority (1)”. If a manager understands these perspectives, it can assist them in selecting the best approach when delegating tasks, if ignored it can be considered insulting to their workforce. Many cultures respect responses of humility and sensitivity, allowing the other to regain equal standing in the wake of conflict or embarrassment. If cultural and language barriers weren’t enough, there is also a gender communication barrier. While there are no absolutes and individual differences in communication types across employee groups, general identified trends can assist managers, and even coworkers, in elevating simple gaps in communication styles. “Robin Lakoff, author of “Language and a Woman’s Place,” studied differences in how boys and girls are taught and reinforced to communicate throughout their early childhood

A popular theme among businesses is the expansion across nations ' borders. Nelson & Quick (2015) describes an expatriate manager as a person who does business in a country different than their own country. Expanding business can be a vital move for businesses to grow. Nelson & Quick (2015, pg. 17) suggests that, "the world is free from national boundaries and is borderless." The key to success when doing business is knowing the cultural differences of that country. The aspects of cultural differences to take into account vary from the individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and time orientation of a country. If I was to choose a country to do business I would choose Australia. Professor Hofstede scored Australia 's culture in six different categories. According to Professor Hofstede 's research (n.d), Australia has a power distance score of 36, individualism score at a 90, masculinity score of 61, uncertainty score of a 51, long term orientation score of a 21, and indulgence score of a 71.

In any society, how we see ourselves and how others treat us depends on many factors. Race, ethnicity, and cultural background are identifiers of individuals. Most people have confronted prejudice based on these identifiers, either personally experiencing discrimination or knowing someone who has. Beyond ensuring organizational compliance with a country’s anti-discrimination laws, it is incumbent upon managers to support diversity in the workplace and to be culturally competent.

In a global economy, the way employees interact within the workplace is critical to the way that business is conducted and is ultimately successful. Leaders and managers who interact within the global setting need to understand differences between each person’s culture, regardless of whether or not the interaction is amongst employees or clients. These differences can include mannerisms or methods of etiquette that may seem strange or unique to those from a different cultural setting. Other differences might include the way that organizations in different nations may or may not be willing to do business or work with other groups based on race, gender, ethnicity, sex, or religion. With a utility such as Geert Hofstede’s Six Dimensions, one can gain insight into the differences between countries the world over regarding these cultural differences (Hofstede).

The workplace has become one of the biggest multicultural settings. Almost half of the work force in the United States is made up of minorities. There are many advantages to having this percentage of people from different cultures throughout our workplace. One is the increase in creativeness. Not only in products that are being created but in the developing of an approach to solving problems. "Other cultures can offer insightful alternatives" (EthoConnect). Another way in which the workplace is affected by this is in productivity and attitudes. When people of all cultures pull together to reach a common goal there are less limited boundaries and there are more global understanding that are used to help reach the world's market place; creating a larger market for products. With this change in productivity in the workplace is more desirable and enjoyable for all employees. The market place has become more global based that workers having a diverse culture base is very important to break down barriers in language and knowledge of certain markets. This affects our lives by more companies hiring more international job seekers.

The most recent studies in cross-cultural management reveal that the culture is a very expansive subject for organizations to study, especially for organizations, which hire the most diverse workforce. One definition of a diverse workforce could be as the one, which comes from different ethnic and demographic backgrounds (Plessis, 2011). For studying culture of the diverse workforce, there are two parts to study, the implicit and the explicit culture. The explicit culture includes behavior while the implicit part involves norms and values of individuals (Guang & Trotter, 2012). The explicit culture is already known when workers stay and work in a firm for a length of time, but the most difficult is to understand the implicit culture which is obscured in form of norms and values of the workers. Due to the differences of cultures, workers hold a great potential of variance, variety in terms of their explicit and implicit parts of the culture. The