Cultural diversity in the workplace refers to employing employees from diverse cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds – something which can benefit companies greatly in many ways.
External diversity refers to an individual’s life experiences, including their worldview, which can impact their perspectives and interactions. Examples of external diversity can include age, gender, religion and education.
Creating an Inclusive Workplace
Cultural diversity at work creates effective cross-cultural teams by encouraging employees to put aside differences and focus on reaching common goals. This allows team members to learn from one another and generate fresh new perspectives and ideas.
Cultural differences can present challenges in the workplace, including communication barriers and stereotyping. A company should offer diversity training so its employees understand and respect each other’s cultures.
Managers should be mindful of employees’ religious holidays or scheduling needs and work together with the team to find appropriate solutions. Furthermore, companies that employ people with disabilities should ensure that employees are compensated fairly and provided with necessary accommodations such as accessible conference rooms or equipment for those with visual impairments – which includes providing accessible conference rooms. Finally, an employee network could help employees from diverse cultural backgrounds connect.
Recruiting a Diverse Workforce
Businesses looking to hire a diverse workforce may benefit from providing training on working across cultures. This can help avoid miscommunication and foster a collaborative environment within the team.
Cultural diversity refers to more than just race or ethnicity – it includes differing political, societal views, education levels and disabilities as well. Some groups may be at a greater risk of discrimination, so it’s essential that steps be taken so all employees feel included and valued.
Some businesses have instituted Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), to foster a sense of community among employees with similar interests. Others have implemented programs designed to expose them to different cultures through guest speakers and activities; and still others include unconscious bias training among their employee development offerings. By welcoming diversity into your workplace and welcoming its contributions, companies can make themselves more competitive while attracting top talent; it may even help the business better serve customers more efficiently and improve customer relations by understanding clientele better.
Developing a Cross-Cultural Workplace Team
Team building activities should provide all employees with an opportunity to understand each other’s cultural backgrounds, particularly in relation to communication styles and expectations. Some cultures interpret direct eye contact as rude while other may see it as an act of respect.
Cultural diversity in the workplace includes encouraging inclusion for people with unique characteristics, such as neurodiverse individuals or those who are disabled. Doing this ensures all team members can carry out their jobs successfully while contributing to projects successfully.
One way of doing this is through unconscious bias trainingOpens in a new tab, which helps employees avoid making judgments based on people’s appearance or ethnic background. Businesses offering such training tend to create environments in which employees feel valued and included – which leads to increased productivity overall.
Training
Diversity in the workplace not only benefits employee happiness but is often more profitable for companies than those without diverse workforces.
Education employees about different cultures is key to creating an inclusive working environment where all members feel valued. Some aspects of cultural diversity to take into account are gender, racial or ethnic identity, religion and disability status.
Differences in cultural norms, values, and etiquette can cause miscommunication or conflict in the workplace. Training employees on how to avoid these issues is beneficial in combatting these problems; for instance, employees should learn how to address colleagues by their preferred name/pronoun combination in order to prevent feeling neglected or disrespected by colleagues.
Employee resource groups that are peer-led can be an excellent way for employees to interact with each other in the workplace while sharing experiences and perspectives related to cultural diversity. Funding and meeting space support these groups are surefire ways to ensure maximum participation from participants.
