Develop a culture that appreciates staff backgrounds

Well, we all work in places that are multicultural. But managing people in a multicultural environment involves studying their behaviour. This is tricky.

When all these are harnessed together we end up with a motley of institutional behaviours.

Globalisation, which means reshaping people’s ways of thinking and behaviour, has led to cultural changes where organisations have merged different cultures and created a new one.

Many companies all over the world are crossing national borders to do business.

They find themselves dealing with people from various national, religious and ethnic backgrounds.

How should these institutions flourish and make profits?

Organisations should ensure that there is successful communication between people from all cultures.

People from various cultural backgrounds should play themselves out well at the workplace.

When handling people from different cultural backgrounds, the management should carry out a few basics.

The first is to make a concentrated effort to learn about the culture of their employees and understand them.

This involves developing an organisational culture that accepts and appreciates the differences that individual employees bring to the workplace.

One of the realities of integrating people of different races and cultures is that occasionally racism or prejudice emerges, creating tensions and disrespect within the workgroup.

Effective managers address problems of prejudice in the workplace by insisting that all employees be treated with respect and dignity regardless of race or cultural background.

The other is that managers should take a proactive role in helping employees to adjust to the work environment and create a new organisational culture by establishing employment policies which stipulate the expected code of conduct.

Once established, the policies should be uniformly enforced with all employees.

This should be done the beginning of the employment relationship.

Recreational activities

The third is to inform all employees on local laws and their performance requirements.

Organisations should support social and recreational activities for all employees.

Some employers encourage employees to join local soccer leagues, attend local churches, and provide opportunities to get away from the office and pursue personal interests.

Companies should also get involved in community relations to help community residents accept and support employees from other cultures and to help employees become oriented to the community.

This helps employees to become part of the community and help community residents to appreciate them.

But they should be aware of personal space and cultural contexts because people from different cultures have different “comfort zones” and ways of communication.

Again they should be aware of body language and learn the basic differences in the way people supplement their words with body movement.

The organisation should also be aware about different etiquette rules or manners because what is polite in one culture may be rude to another, this can be achieved by observing ethical and legal behaviours in different cultures.

If you are a new manager in such a place, learn as much as possible about other cultures to enhance the organisations ability to communicate with other cultures.

Learn the cultures history, religion, politics, values and customs.

Still the organization should, show respect, be patient, flexible and recognize its own cultural biases and emphasize on common ground and increase its cultural sensitivity.

Be aware of different social values and status symbols and aggressively overcome the culture barriers.

It should also have a basic knowledge of the employees’ culture and traditions because this has a bearing on their behaviour.

Make people with different cultural identities feel like part of the society around them and feel like one team.

It should also consider each employees family, religion, education, nationality, ethics and etiquette because these play an important part in their life.

Multiculturalism is not about a single element of a persona, it’s about various cultures in each one of us and they represent the way employees think, act and react.