Diversity Training and Cross-cultural Professional Development is a global trend in the field of human resource management. It affects the direction taken by human resource managers when they are dealing with employees in the organization and the organizational practices adopted by managers when they recruit or recommend individuals based on their skill. Diversity training and cross-cultural professional development is an area of human resource management concerned with all the available opportunities to learn and programs of education offered by the organization to the employees (Bach and Edwards 20). It also touches on the initiatives taken by organization in various parts of the world in sponsoring and promoting formal coursework in the universities and institutions of advanced learning. Organizations and institutions of higher education relate in the sense that these institutions produce recruits with training and skill, who are ready to enter the job market saturated by these organizations.
After completing education in universities, graduates often look for opportunities of employment in various places based on there are of expertise, interest, and training. Globalization has changed the scope, nature, and jurisdiction of skill that employees must have because organizations are expanding their operations and venturing into external markets beyond their localities and national borders (Akar, Dirlik, Kiymalioglu, Yurtseven, and Boz 24). As such, organizations must have personnel with global skill in terms of the technical expertise and culture because they are dealing with markets that have different conditions. Therefore, it is important for organizations to have training forums that enable the employees to attend professional conferences and events aimed at improved interpersonal networking and training on the job undertaken by the employees. Networking is also important in the sense that it allows employees to meet new people, learn, and appreciate the new culture hence it helps to achieve the cross-culture efficiency of the organization (Bach and Edwards 24). The aim of the programs in the organization is to enable employees diversify their set of skill and improve their major competencies. For instance, they can improve their skill set by learning foreign languages and advance their core competence by being able to understand how foreign countries carryout their business.
HOW DIVERSITY TRAINING AND CROSS-CULTURAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AFFECTS ME AND OTHERS
Diversity Training and Cross-cultural Professional Development has an effect my fellow students and I. given that we have prospects of entering the job market and becoming a part of the corporate world, it is important to have all the competencies required by the organization. As such, we must enroll in educational programs that allow us to have a global perspective of matters within the job market. It is important that we do not limit our competencies to the requirements of local markets. For instance, if we are taking courses in the field of engineering, it is important to learn basic law (Akar, Dirlik, Kiymalioglu, Yurtseven, and Boz 32). It is important because we may enroll in organizations undertaking contracts in other countries hence we may need to have a grasp of the basic laws in contracts, sale of goods, law of torts, and formation of companies. As much as legal practitioners will deal with the legalities of the organization, it is important to have a basic knowledge. It will enable us to know when to institute legal proceedings, the civil torts to avoid, and the steps undertaken when dealing with legal suits. Therefore, we will have to undertake additional courses in the university or college besides the core courses in our major areas of study. In addition, we have to find organizations that make us all round individuals whenever we have to enroll for our industrial attachment (Bach and Edwards 44). Such organizations are not easy to find because the organizations have limited opportunities within the departments. They tend to focus on the core competencies of individuals and forego the importance of creating an employee with diverse skill and cultural techniques.
It also affects us in the sense that we have to develop a multi-cultural mindset willing to accommodate all types of people in the corporate world. Today, a new trend in the management of human facilitates global recruitment as organization seeks to achieve cultural and technical competencies. Therefore, we must be willing to work with people from other cultural settings and accommodate the manner in which they conduct themselves when dealing with other people (Barclay 38). On the same, we have to understand the global nature of the corporate world today and appreciate the fact that it is possible to work in any market in the world today. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves psychologically to work far away from our home countries and stay for long periods without seeing our families and friends.
Positive Aspects of Diversity Training and Cross-cultural Professional Development
Diversity training and cross-cultural professional development enables organizations to cut costs during operations. Given that, personnel have a multiplicity of skills; organizations reduce the logistics in terms of costs because one employee can perform several organizational tasks (Barclay 45). For instance, if an employee proficient in both English and French needs to make a presentation to investors in France, the organization will not have to hire the services of an interpreter. If an employee can make a presentation in French, the organization mitigates the cost incurred remunerating the interpreter, which may even necessitate outsourcing from the organization (Hutchings and De 10).
Moreover, the new trend in human resource management enables organizations to be culturally competent. Culture refers to the traditions, customs, beliefs, practices, and institutional programs and procedures followed by a particular group of people. Since organizations have employees with varied cultures and ethnicity, it is important to adopt universal cultural practices that can accommodate all the employees. Cultural competence refers to a condition where all the employees are satisfied within the organization (Barclay 56). In order to achieve this, managers in the organization must have adequate cultural knowledge, be culturally aware and sensitive to formulate strategies for good interpersonal relations within the organization. Since the employee receives diverse professional and cultural training, a new trend has encouraged cultural competence leading to organizations that are more productive. In these organizations, vices such as racism are outdated (Hutchings and De 14).
NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF DIVERSITY TRAINING AND CROSS-CULTURAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
First, there are increased costs for organizations in today’s corporate world. The employees must attend several sessions of training to equip themselves with the required knowledge and diverse skills. In this case, the organizations must organize several training forums such as seminars, meetings, and workshops to ensure that the employees receive the required professional training and skill (Hutchings and De 28). In a year, the training sessions must be several because the conditions of the international market keep changing. Costs come in the sense that organizations must pay the people training the employees and provide some allowances for the employees when the sessions take too long. On the other hand, it also incurs costs in terms of production because the organizations will spend time on training at the expense of achieving the goals of the business objectives.
Secondly, then new trend in human resource management leads to increased competition within the job market. Since organizations can employ both local and foreign experts, people from developed nations have an advantage over those in developing nations because of the difference in the levels of technology (Schuler and Tarique 13). As such, the new trend may have more effects on the rates of unemployment in the markets of developing nations especially where organizations have ready expertise from other countries. They would rather hire skilled people than incur the cost of training local personnel, which results in higher costs.
PLANS THAT WILL ENABLE CAPITALIZE ON THE POSSIBLE CHANGE
The first plan is to join a multi-cultural educational institution that has students from different countries. Today, many universities have students from different nations because of the increase in globalization. Joining such an institution will give me an opportunity to interact with others and learn to appreciate the cultural differences among people, an element that I can practice at the workplace (Hutchings and De 33). Secondly, I will learn two foreign languages to add on my cultural competencies within the job market. With those skills, organizations will find me a competitive individual ready to work in several markets (Schuler and Tarique 36). Lastly, I will advance my education in my major area of study and acquire a master’s degree after completing my bachelors. Organizations often consider academic competencies, above all, the others hence advanced learning enables me to stay abreast of the competition.
Works Cited
Akar, Nuray Y., Onur Dirlik, Aslihan Kiymalioglu, Ozlem Yurtseven, and Huseyin Boz. "Evaluation of Contemporary Trends in International Human Resources Management from Strategic Approaches and Regional Models Perspective: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of 1998-2008." (2011): Print.
Bach, Stephen, and Martin R. Edwards. Managing Human Resources: Human Resource Management in Transition. Hoboken: Wiley, 2013. Print.
Barclay, Lizabeth. "Globalizing International Human Resource Management (Rowley, C. and Warner, M., Eds.; 2008) [Book Review]." IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2009): n. pag. Print.
Hutchings, Kate, and Cieri H. De. International Human Resource Management: From Cross-Cultural Management to Managing a Diverse Workforce. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Print.
Schuler, Randall S., and Ibraiz Tarique. "International human resource management: a North American perspective, a thematic update and suggestions for future research." International Journal of Human Resource Management (2007): n. pag. Print.
