Communication Skills in a Cross-Culturally Diverse Workplace
Communication Skills in a Cross-Culturally Diverse Workplace
Introduction
Globalization has given rise to an environment that continues to change in terms of complexity as local business expand and begin competing with other businesses for a share of the vast global market. Globalization has essentially compelled corporations, nations and by extension, regions to be overly interdependent (Adair, Hideg & Spence, 2013). This has resulted from greater consumer awareness that has resulted in the development of new standards and demands resulting from the fact that different nations project varying cultural inclinations (D'Netto et al, 2014). Nations and more specifically business are embracing the need for greater respect and cultural sensitivity in an effort to profit from the developmental growth of the global operating environment in the 21st Century.
Research studies provide that efficacious cross-cultural communication, management and negotiation is critical towards ensuring growth oriented multinational firms compete successfully for global expansion (Caligiuri & Lundby, 2015). As such, many organizations and more so, relatively new ones have successfully incorporate acculturation strategies, cultural awareness paradigms and shunned ethnocentric management practices with great effect. Furthermore, research outcomes show that a number of previously successful international business ventures have collapsed because of: management strategies that failed to respect the benefits of intercultural skills; adopt cross-cultural exchanges; poor communication skills in the international marketplace; and undesirable business etiquette and ethics (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014; Adair, Hideg & Spence, 2013). This paper seeks to present a comprehensive discussion as to the need for efficacious communication skills in cross-culturally diverse workplace environments.
Literature Review
Working with clients and more so, colleagues from various cultural backgrounds can present some very interesting outcomes. To begin with, cross-culturally diverse workplaces experience significant challenges especially in instances where attitudes and beliefs of workers differ (Adair, Hideg & Spence, 2013). It is critical to appreciate that cultural belief system and differences tend to determine how communication is employed as well as the manner with which a person carries out assigned roles and duties. In most instances, such individuals are rarely aware of these definitive differences. According to Dollwet and Reichard (2014), it is common that people base expectations of fellow workmates founded on personal experiences. As such, in cases where employees have never realized working experiences associated with working with individuals from other cultures, then expectations as to how others should act and communicate tends to be misguided. For instance, it is common for an employee to develop a set of beliefs, ideas, rights and attitudes about other workers from different cultures that impact on how such an individual interacts with other employees (Adair, Hideg & Spence, 2013). This implies that such an individual’s frame of reference tends to impact on how he or she relates with others in the workplace. It is of significance importance to point out that for individuals working in the service industry, it is crucial that one should be fully aware of personal values.
As (Adair, Hideg & Spence, (2013) state, persons from one cultural group tend to see the world from a viewpoint referred to as the cultural frame of reference. As such, this serves to represent their perceived worldview (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014). In organizations, more so, in today’s operating environment, workers function as teams. An essential aspect of workplace teams involves cognizance of cultural practices as well as differences and more so, the use of efficacious communication techniques to enhance understanding (Caligiuri & Lundby, 2015). In an effort to positively add to the value of an organization and ensure best practices are upheld, employees are required to consider the fact that values are attitudes and beliefs they embrace with regard to the following:
How individuals should respond to particular circumstances
How significant facets of life should be regarded like relationships, finances, family, gender roles and power (Adair, Hideg & Spence, 2013).
Blended Workplace Culture
In the contemporary organizational workplace, more professional role and managerial positions are being taken up by the female gender as well as dissimilar cultural groups, ages, abilities and lifestyles (Caligiuri & Lundby, 2015). Such diversity gives rise to various challenges and present benefits with regard to creativities, ideas as well as innovations into workplaces. Dollwet and Reichard (2014) provide that blended workplace cultures create environments whereby cases of sexism, ageism and racism can result in an organization losing its innovative potential and by extension, culminate to failure in the international operating environment. Therefore, an organization’s adopted culture tends to determine its degree of business success (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014). In an effort to ensure organizational performance and competitiveness, foundational organizational values such as social responsibility, innovation, performance excellence, work life quality and employee involvement should be progressively accentuated.
Leaders within organizations are thus compelled to appraise their capabilities towards proactively managing the following aspects: growing complexity of diversity within workplaces; comprehend and respect differences; ensure necessary adjustments concerning leadership are implemented; and enhance readiness for any arising challenges or prospects. Such tasks are best implemented by leaders within organizations, as they are ultimately the greatest influencers of organizational performance (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014); (D'Netto, et al, 2014). To enable leaders realize such outcomes, it is imperative that human resource development experts within an organization proactively support leaders in successfully resolving diversity concerns via leadership development.
Group Dynamics
Group dynamics is of significant influence in contemporary global leadership practices. Management approaches and more so, leadership styles are highly dependent on group circumstances and dynamics. For instance, a particular judgment or critique can result in changes in individual values and behavior when the workplace environment is consistently molded by the unchanging group ideals and patterns (Streiner,et al, 2014). In many cases, leadership styles tend to be impacted upon by the views projected by superiors, peers and subordinates. It is critical to note that group dynamics practices concerning norms, relations, behaviors and roles are basically formulated to distinguish group participants from others (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014). Each individual group dynamic plays a vital role in molding global leadership and more so, presents a strong influence on an organization’s culture and climate. Group dynamics is therefore crucial towards cultural innovation.
Group dynamics are in essence affected by team size in relatively the same manner as leadership (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014). For example, autocratic leadership is deemed necessary in cases where there are large group sizes. Dynamic cross-cultural competencies thus remain vital to organizational leaders as well as managers. These can be appraised by personality traits and more so cross cultural experiences development.
Gender Differences
In the past, the female gender was ever underrepresented in senior organizational positions. According to D'Netto, Shen, Chelliah & Monga (2014), the differences arising between the female and male gender are basically related to genetics, work related management and psychologies. The female gender is considered as being naturally endowed towards good communication skills. Similarly, Dollwet & Reichard (2014) underscore that females are able to hear and listen to what and the manner with which an issue is communicated and furthermore, exhibit higher propensities of interest with respect to interpersonal relations (D'Netto, Shen, Chelliah & Monga, 2014). Conversely, the male gender seems to only hear what has been communicated and also exhibit a greater inclination to aggression. As such, most cultures have since antiquity, considered the male gender as being naturally endowed with aggression, which was perceived as a great leadership trait. Women on the other hand, were stereotyped as insecure and emotional followers in most culture and more so, in need of protection from the male gender (D'Netto, et al, 2014). Today, organizations are seeking to empower women towards enhancing networking skills, employment promotion opportunities and self-confidence. This has enabled workplaces to incorporate more female employees and ensuring organizational environments understand common female gender stereotypes thus assisting multicultural leaders to build on favorable relations that shun biased management decisions (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014).
Cultural Diversity
Work ethics, communication styles, management-employee relations and behaviors differ from nation to nation (Kaur, 2013). Similarly, leadership competencies are conceptualized in differently in different nations. For instance, high context nations such as China, Japan and South Korea, the employees favor indirect messages and are heavily reliant on non-verbal communication. Kaur (2013) also provides that lower context nations like Britain and Germany on the other hand prefer direct communication and prefer detailed information when relaying messages. More so, Asian nations project cooperative relationships and as such, it is perceived that praising individuals undermines group harmony (Streiner et al, 2014); (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014). Rather than gratify a single employee from a team or group, managers tend to gratify the entire group.
Differences in cultural expectations compel different cultural groupings to project different expectations concerning leadership (Streiner, Cunningham, Huang, Levonisova & Matherly, 2014). This tends to influence workplace behaviors of the workers as well as managers. Organizations operating in cross culturally diverse settings should thus ensure that workers are well aware that leaders appreciate individual cultural variations without incidences of personal bias. As Streiner et al (2014) provide, this is critical towards enhancing the favorable outcomes of culturally diverse workplaces and improving the strategic vision concerning organizational innovation. There is therefore the need for leaders to have apt communication skills in cross-culturally diverse workplaces.
Cross-Cultural Communication
The leadership traits that are of critical significance in cross-culturally diverse workplaces include confidence, trust and most importantly, effective communication skills (Streiner, Cunningham, Huang, Levonisova & Matherly, 2014). Today, corporations have become transformed into broadly dispersed entities that are increasingly integrating diverse cultural groups. About 85% of Fortune 500, accredited companies feel that they possess inadequate figures of global leaders (Okoro, 2012); (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014). Similarly, a survey provided that all of the participating organizational leaders felt the urgency towards more education and training towards enabling organizations attain diversity goals. It is therefore imperative that the need to generate efficacious cross-cultural leaders in contemporary culturally diverse firms is realized. Okoro (2012) points out that recent research studies provide that current training programs implemented by human resource functions in firms are ineffective. More so, the fact that a great number of corporate professional working as expatriates have failed in their assignments.
Leaders within cross-cultural workplaces ought to formulate frameworks that comprehensively incorporate the different aspects of diversity, benefit from such diversity rather than waiting for the organization to conform through experiences (Kukreja & Bhagat, 2015). As such, diversity challenges may linger on until the point where every employee in the workplace learns, understands and appreciate the personally inherent unconscious approaches and behaviors that probably limit other and the organization at large from succeeding (Okoro, 2012). The true advantages of workplace diversity can only emerge at the point where employees become fully conscious and aware of their feelings towards other workers.
As Eisenberg, Lee, Brück, Brenner, Claes, Mironski & Bell (2013) provides leader in a cross-culturally diverse workplace can become an efficacious cross-cultural communicator if he or she possesses a number of attributes. These attributes include self-awareness and self-assessment with respect to individual identity, ethnicity, culture and privileges. As Eisenberg,et al, (2013) provide, this is a vital step towards psychological readiness. Leaders who have comprehensively analyzed their ethnicity, identity and more so, are positively relate with their unique culture will in essence have a positive inclination towards developing and nurturing an interest in cultures adhered to by others in the workplace (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014); (Eisenberg et al, 2013).
It is common knowledge that psychological privileges are intangible and as such, cannot be acquired through education. Such are in most cases bestowed on individuals associated with the norm and associated privileges offer invisible and often sidelined advantages especially in the context of cross-culturally diverse workplaces (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014). People who have comprehensively examined and appreated these psychological privileges tend to be better prepared to accomplish assigned tasks instead of focusing on their cultural identity relative to those exhibited by other workmates (Renzaho,et al., 2013). More importantly, communication within the workplace is dependent on and integrated within impressions associated with individual perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, perspectives and understanding of different cultures. Dollwet & Reichard (2014) encourage leaders to be consciously aware of the birthplace of their behaviors and actions to be prepared psychologically for success in a cross-culturally diverse workplace.
Recommendations
An organization leader should work towards ensuring communication skills among employees in cross-culturally diverse workplace are enhanced to reap the numerous advantages associated with it (Truong, Paradies & Priest, 2014). The human resource function in such an organization ought to work towards formulating training programs that similarly enable employees to project acceptable communication skills in relation to the organizational culture. It is highly recommended that other than effect leadership training concerning communication skills in such a workplace, other employee be also incorporated into such training exercises (Dollwet & Reichard, 2014).
Examples of Acceptable Behaviors
Training programs implemented by the human resource function should work with the view of enabling greater teamwork among employees. One significant rule should include setting guidelines as to what entails cooperative behaviors (Kukreja & Bhagat, 2015). Cooperative behaviors are those that include:
Listening to the views of fellow workers,
Exhibiting non-verbal as well as verbal consideration and respect to other cross-cultural employees,
Employees should appropriately acknowledge an understanding of communication from other workmates,
A worker should take into consideration the needs of fellow workers prior to giving communication or acting,
Workers should embrace the need to consult with senior workplace members prior to taking action,
Timely sharing of information, equipment and materials that are relevant to different workplace situations,
Displays the desires to constructive negotiate with others in the workplace towards ensuring group or team tasks are accomplished within prescribed timeframes (Truong, Paradies & Priest, 2014).
A significant aspect of cooperatively working in a cross-culturally diverse workplace group is information sharing. As such, the form of information shared may vary as the group membership and purpose dictates (Truong, Paradies & Priest, 2014). Information shared or communicated to other workplace groups may include:
An employees present activities which relate to other tasks concurrently being carried up by other members of a workplace team or group,
Significant achievements and incidents reported by clients,
Feedback that could enable the workplace group or teams to enhance on the quality of service delivery,
Vital support and training acquired by an employee that could positively impact on the efficiency and effectiveness other members in the workplace groups and teams,
Queries and concerns that a worker may have concerning the undertakings of the group,
Changes implemented on previously agreed upon action,
Any information that could enable effective and efficient achievement of the group or team goals.
Information Sharing Methods
Information shared within cross-culturally diverse workplaces may be communicated through informal or formal channels (Renzaho, Romios, Crock & Sønderlund, 2013). Formal communication entails including memos or even, staff meetings. Informal communication may include employing such channels as telephonic communications or brief discussions during out of workplace hours (Kukreja & Bhagat, 2015). In a cross-culturally diverse workplace, some protocols should be incorporated to aptly determine whether employees should employ informal or formal communication avenues. These protocols include:
The kind of information to be communicated, for instance, clients’ names can be communicated informally such as through verbal means among employees in the workplace (Renzaho, Romios, Crock & Sønderlund, 2013). Sensitive information such as client particulars should however be communicated through formal avenues.
The significance and urgency of the data requiring to be conveyed (Renzaho, Romios, Crock & Sønderlund, 2013).
Where a follow-up action or response is required, then formal avenues should be used (Renzaho, Romios, Crock & Sønderlund, 2013).
The number of members within the workplace should also determine the means with which they receive such information (Renzaho, Romios, Crock & Sønderlund, 2013). For instance, an important workplace agenda that should be communicated to all workers or members of a workplace can be conveniently conveyed through formal avenues such as through a memo.
Other essential communication skills important in a cross-culturally diverse workplace include understanding the fact that individuals from other cultures tend to perceive some subjects as taboo (Eisenberg, Lee, Brück, Brenner, Claes, Mironski & Bell, 2013). It is therefore important to embrace this fact and shun discussing known taboo subjects not only in the workplace but also when in the company of such workmates when away from work (Okoro, 2012). People from other cultures also tend have varying communication techniques. It is therefore recommended that when a new employee arrives and projects a different cultural background, it is important to first observe how they tend to engage in communication (Renzaho, Romios, Crock & Sønderlund, 2013). This is basically because their communication protocols may differ from those projected by other cultures.
More so, some communication functions such as inviting, requesting, offering or apologizing proceed differently relative to cultural rules (Truong, Paradies & Priest, 2014). Thus, such individuals may require an ultimately different approach during such or similar communication engagements. The HR function in organization is in essence tasked with ensuring that the different viewpoints of people from various cultures are understood by others in the workplace (Kaur, 2013). Training programs towards greater workplace diversity should therefore look into all aspects concerning the different cultures present in a workplace environment.
Summary
Organizational leaders operating in the global context should constantly pursue proficiency relative to cross-cultural communication skills. This has been highlighted as critical towards ascertaining successful organizational enterprises on a global scale. Leaders are thus tasked with constantly seeking novel cultural knowledge, understanding cultural variations as well as seeking wisdom to improve understanding of other cultures and by extension, constructively communicating with them. As this paper has shown, workplace diversity has improved in recent years. Such improvements have affected workplace group dynamics, fostered blended workplaces, cultural diversity, and gender diversity, ultimately calling for the enhancement of communication skills in cross-culturally diverse workplaces. This paper has also offered a set of recommendations through which leaders and the HR function can work towards enhancing communication skills in culturally diverse workplaces. The paper has therefore attempted to achieve means, through which organizations can find solutions to misinterpretations and misunderstanding towards reaping the numerous benefits associated with a well function cross-culturally diverse workplace.
References
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