Behind the class, distinction and style that Ares Distribution stands for, there are its people, supporting the company’s increasing sales and developing its marketing programs. The company’s sales, marketing and retailing performances are visible today through an unprecedented increase in demand in Latin America, USA and Caribbean, where it activates (Ares Distributors official website). This is the result of a successful team work, which enjoys a good organizational climate, built on respect, cooperation, trusting each other, sharing and embracing differences, valuing the cultural diversity.
At Ares Distributors the workforce is diverse, and the company is benefiting of the experience and the different cultures of professionals coming from Switzerland, Colombia, Venezuela, France, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Argentina or United States. This mix strengthens the company’s operations, as it is capitalizing on its employees’ cultural diversity, as an organizational behavior component that contributes to enhancing Ares Distributors’ presence and sales figures in the markets in which it activates. The employees come not only with different professional experiences, contributing to the quality of the Ares Distributors’ operations, but also with a diverse cultural background related to doing business, to perceiving the world, to defining what works best for a certain world region or country, in terms of tastes, prefferences and style. Having employees from three continents (Europe, North America, South America) the company is capitalizing on the cultural differences and the experience of its employees.
In the nowadays global economy, where the businesses are no longer insular, they require global experience and knowhow for competing against companies located in other countries or continents, as they compete on the same marketplace (Mazur, 2010). This is the case of Ares Distributors, competing against other globally renowned and appreciated timepieces companies, located in all the corners of the world.
However, establishing good working relationship between employees with different cultural background is not always easy, because there can appear communication break downs or cultural blockages, resulting from the misunderstandings and from a lack of knowledge of the others’ cultures and cultural or social values, and this can easily generate into workplace conflicts, which are unproductive for the company (Ajmal, 2009). Moreover, a diverse workplace can also outburst in discriminations or in self – isolation of employees because of the treatment of the other colleagues, which can represent a source of stress, which can be damaging for the company’s productivity (Wrench, 2013).
For Ares Distributors, knowing these challenges is highly significant, so that the company to know how to handle eventual conflicts or miscommunications that might outburst as a result of joining forces of employees with diverse cultural background. Implementing a cultural diversity program is therefore essential for the company’s business and its further success. In encouraging cultural diversity in the organization, Ares Distributors should learn to manage the challenges of diversity for capitalizing on the benefits of an effective diverse workforce.
Managers implementing the cultural diversity as an organizational behavior at Ares Distributors should be aware of the fact that they should be prepared to manage the cultural prejudices, the biases and discrimination and in so doing it is recommended that they should first evaluate their own biases and prejudices and then analyze the dynamics within the company’s employees with different citizenships. As organizational behavior specialists recommend, encouraging the diversity in the workplace should be a continuous training because one – day actions for pursuing this goal will not be sufficient for changing attitudes. Continuous effort towards attaining a harmonized cultural diverse workplace, however, will result in defining an organizational behavior for understanding difference and embracing uniqueness, accelerating cooperation between individuals by reducing the cultural misunderstandings (Koonce, 2013).
Therefore, besides their focus on selling and marketing sophisticated timepieces, Ares Distributors’ managers should implement ongoing trainings for facilitating the communication between employees, determining them to acknowledge the positive aspects of being different, learning from the others’ experience and knowhow, appreciating their uniqueness as an asset from which they have only but to learn.
As Wrench (2013) observes, diversity training can pursue various goals, ranging from becoming aware of the cultural differences among individuals to cultivating empathy, or developing communication skills, while learning about culture in general or about a specific culture, determining the trainees to learn about the cultural values of their colleagues who have diverse cultural or social background.
Developing training programs focused on how culture in general affects the working relationships and how specific cultures are usually doing businesses is a helpful tool that Ares Distributors should implement for allowing its employees to better know each other and to understand the significance of culture in the workplace and how it affects the work dynamics, the inter human relationships or the overall company’s productivity.
These training sessions can be organized in a non – formal setting, implemented in the day to day activity of the organization, so that this process to be better assimilated into the company’s organizational behavior, by permanently reminding it to the employees. As such, there can be developed internal communication programs meant to embrace the uniqueness of specific cultures, by organizing “Cultural Diversity Day”, allowing employees from various countries to present their country’s values, traditions, social habits, professional customs, and other cultural aspects that make them different, allowing the others to know them outside their working costume and to understand their attitudes regarding various aspects of the work, influenced by their cultural background.
Promoting an inclusive workplace is another organizational tool for managing the cultural diversity challenges, improving the team work and employees’ contribution to meeting the organizational goals (Feldman & Khademian, 2000).
Another significant aspect of the diversity trainings at Ares Distributors should be focused on generating the feeling of belonging, by inculcating to all employees, regardless of their cultural background, the organizational values of the company, to which all workers should adhere. Having shared values and following the same goals and objectives, the employees share a sense of belonging, having common attributes, which they approach by respecting the company’s policies on ethics or business behavior, applying also their unique values, given by their specific cultural belonging.
This organizational behavior program would need the full participation of both managers and employees for being effective. However, knowing that in the current economy the global workforce, and cultural diversity represent key assets for attaining competitive advantage, both managers and employees would understand that a cultural divers workplace, which values inclusion and the uniqueness of each employee is more than a necessity for sharing an harmonious workplace, in which individuals come with pleasure every day, but it is also a condition for being successful and reaching higher sales figures every year. Therefore, the managers would consider this process to be supportive for their sales planes, while providing a culture of belonging, which values diversity within the company, which is a significant asset that will generate positive long term results. For the employees, a culture of diversity and inclusion would improve the team work, and although they might be reluctant at first, they will very soon see the advantages of better knowing and understanding each other’s’ differences, strengths and qualities, which will contribute to developing the team spirit, enhancing their productivity.
References
Ajmal, M., M. (2009) Managing knowledge in project – based organizations: a cultural perspective. Wasanaensis, Universitas Wasanaensis.
Ares Distributors, Inc. (n.d) Ares Distributors official website. Retrieved from http://aresdistributors.com/about/.
Feldman, M., S. & Khademian, A., M. (2000) “Managing for inclusion: balancing control and participation”. International Public Management Journal. Vol. 3, pp. 149 – 167.
Koonce, R. (2013) Redefining diversity: it’s not just the right thing to do. It also makes good business sense. Retrieved from http://www.managingworkplacediversity.com/Articles/Article_Detail.asp?a=88&title=Redefining+Diversity%3A+It%27s+Not+Just+the+Right+Thing+to+Do.+It+Also+Makes+Good+Business+Sense.++.
Mazur, B. (2010) “Cultural diversity in organizational theory and practice” Journal of Intercultural Management. Vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 5 – 15.
Wrench, J., S. (2013) Workplace communication for the 21st century: tools and strategies that impact the bottom line. California, ABC – CLIO, LLC.
