Sabrina Boermeester

Professor Goncalves

Around the World

9 March 2018

Cultural Diversity in the Workplace

There is no question that cultural diversity in the workplace can bring great success and

growth to a company, especially in a competitive global marketplace. With growing markets and

expanding industries, it is essential for companies to engage in activities that promote and

maintain diversity within their work cultures. However, benefits of cultural diversity come with

great challenges for not only the company, but minorities and other employees as well as

cultures, norms, and communication clash. The Hult International Business School has explored

these benefits and challenges of cultural diversity in the workplace in their article, 13 Benefits

and Challenges of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace in 2017. As we explore these benefits and

challenges touched upon in this article, it is important to also seek of ways to overcome

challenges and maintain the satisfaction of diversity in any company.

When working with a team, group, or even a company as a whole, it is always most

beneficial to gather and express the thoughts and insights of each individual involved. One of the

first benefits listed by Hult was that cultural diversity in the workplace, “can inspire creativity

and drive innovation” (Hult). Individuals coming from different backgrounds can bring new

ideas and a multicultural perspective to the table. According to Justin Grey in his article, Study

Finds Diverse, Inclusive Workplaces More Productive, “international studies found that diverse

teams are better able to solve complex problems, exhibit a higher level of creativity and a

broader thought process” (Grey). Additionally, diversity can drive healthy competition within the
workplace, pushing employees to perform even better, ultimately increasing the company’s

ability to solve problems and increase innovation.

Oftentimes, others can think of something that we ourselves would never think of. This

benefits companies greatly, especially when it comes to global marketing competition. With

multicultural insight and the development of multicultural product development teams, a

company would be able to know exactly what a particular market might be looking for because

they may have a better cultural understanding of the target market. In addition, having a diverse

workforce in a global market can increase a company’s awareness of what may or may not be

acceptable in different cultures when it comes to marketing techniques. Slang, spelling, idioms,

and behaviors are not the same in every culture, therefore a company must be extremely careful

when marketing to other cultures, making sure their ads are not offensive. Cultural diversity in

the workplace can help reduce the chance of this taking place.

Within the workplace itself, whether a company has a global market or not, expanding

diversity can allow a company to increase their opportunities of finding and retaining talent,

grow personally and professionally, and broaden the skill bases of employees. For most

management teams, adaptability within their work forces are crucial in unpredictable business

environments. Because of this, according to Marwan Soghaier in The Importance of Having a

Broad Skill Set Within Any Organization, “someone who can fill numerous voids within an

organization becomes much more valuable than someone limited to just one,

which…dramatically decreases their value” (Soghaier). Broadening skill sets of a company’s

workforce by expanding diversity and increasing adaptability can allow a company to recognize

gaps in changing markets, help a developing company grow in the future, and even reduce

overhead costs within the company by utilizing full skill potentials of employees.
 Although diversity can bring great value to a company, it is important to recognize

challenges that this may bring to individuals working for the company as well as the company as

whole itself. Coming from different backgrounds and cultures, individuals’ beliefs, norms, and

communication can clash easily. Language barriers are inevitable if individuals are not fluent in

the dominant language spoken in the workplace, but there are also language barriers from a

communication standpoint where some cultures are not as direct as others. In other words, the

way that we may act and communicate here may be vastly different from how individuals act and

communicate in other countries. For example, individuals from other countries may not be

comfortable openly expressing their ideas to a group or to management/authority figures because

where they’re from, that type of behavior is frowned upon. In some cultures, kids are taught to

only speak when they are spoken to or stay quiet with their head down around authority figures.

Management teams with diverse work forces must recognize this as a cultural norm for that

individual and not take it offensively. If this is not understood by management, conflict may

arise.

This type of non-verbal communication varies among all cultures. Something as simple

as differing greeting styles may be uncomfortable for those who are not used to the simple

“hello”. For instance, in Europe, it is normal for people to greet each other with a kiss on both

cheeks, whereas in the United States it is normal to shake hands. Differing non-verbal

communication in the workplace can even go as far as different levels of comfortable physical

space between people, making and maintaining eye contact, and hand signals/gesturing. Since

communication competence (engaging in communication with others that is effective and

appropriate in a given context) is the key to success at most companies, it is important for
companies to recognize these types of communication barriers between cultures and seek ways

to find a middle ground between colleagues.

One of the major issues, however, in the workplace with a diverse work force is

stereotyping and prejudice that can lead to major conflicts. Individuals are unable to perform to

their greatest potentials if they do not feel accepted in a given environment. Everyone has their

own implicit bias, which is an unconscious belief in certain racial stereotypes. This, whether we

want to admit we have these beliefs or not, may lead to microagressions which are intentional or

unintentional “environmental slights, snubs, or insults” that “communicate hostile, derogatory, or

negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership”

(Rivera). In other words, microagressions are hidden messages that devalue a group’s identity

and indicate an inferior status to a particular target group. Some examples of microagressions

may include complimenting someone of a different race on their ability to speak good English

even if they were born in the United States, turning the word “gay” into a word used to describe

something you don’t like, calling a woman leader a “bitch” and calling her male counterpart a

“good leader”, etc. Individuals in a culturally diverse workplace must be aware of what they are

saying as some types of communication may be offensive to minorities and cause conflict.

With several benefits and challenges that come with diversity in the workplace, it is

essential for companies to seek and implement ways to maintain diversity in addition to

satisfaction of employees, the company itself, as well as the industry. Without maintenance and

retention, success with diversity will inevitably fail as having an ethnically diverse work force

can make a company 35% more likely to have financial returns (Hunt). According to Andy

Molinsky in his article, Learning to Speak Up When You’re from a Culture of Deference, “the

first critical thing is to educate employees about these differences, and to develop a solid level of
empathy for the challenges that their employees may face” (Molinsky). Awareness and education

of cultural differences is crucial in understanding how to coexist with a diverse group and

maintain group synergy. In order to achieve this, according to Getting It Right: Understanding

and Managing Diversity in the Workplace at People Scout, is to engage in sensitivity training

that helps employees learn to change their perspectives of others that are different from them,

appreciate the views of others, how to address conflict with offensive behavior, and how to

apologize to an employee you may have offended (Dyson).

Additionally, employers can enforce zero-tolerance policies, stay in line with diversity

laws, treat employees as individuals, encourage employees to work in diverse groups, and create

self-managed teams in the workplace in order to encourage and maintain diversity. Frank Dobbin

and Alexandra Kalev, in their article Why Diversity Programs Fail, explain that self-managed

teams can allow people in other functions of the business to work together on projects and

increase actual contact of diverse groups, ultimately correcting cognitive dissonance of prior

beliefs (Kalev). These types of activities allow people to break down stereotypes that they may

have and also encourage those that may not be comfortable speaking up to be more engaged in

the workforce. As more and more individuals have an understanding of cultural diversity and are

comfortable talking about and being educated on the subject, the more successful a company will

be.

In my own experience, I have definitely worked best in diverse groups that are open,

comfortable, and accepting. I have worked for the past two years at Raytheon Company as a

finance intern and I have been able to get the opportunity to join Employee Resource Groups

(ERGs) which are open to the entire company. A few examples of ERGs focus on the LGBTQ

community, women, young workers, African Americans, Asian Pacific, veterans, and individuals
with disabilities. The purpose of these groups are to educate employees about diversity

challenges in the workplace and how to overcome those challenges. They work to share voices of

minorities who have had unique experiences in the workplace, optimize work talent across all

functions, increase diversity awareness and career development opportunities and encourage

community service initiatives that support minority groups. These ERGs have attributed great

success to Raytheon as a whole and attracts diverse talent to the company, ultimately granting

them with a broadened skill set. As a whole, they are able to educate all employees across the

company about diversity challenges and how to overcome them, whether you are part of a

minority group or not.

Overall, Hult has highlighted the major benefits and challenges of diversity in their

article, 13 Benefits and Challenges of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace in 2017, that has led

the way to explaining how important understanding of cultural diversity is when working in

teams/groups. If companies are able to overcome not only the challenges mentioned in the

article, but challenges that may arise from everyday work culture, they have a better chance of

being able to improve top talents, employee and company satisfaction, and even increase the

feasibility of decision making. With growing markets and industries, companies are constantly

faced with adaptation and having a diverse work force allows a company to do just that and

ultimately succeed in the business environment.

 Work Cited

“13 Benefits and Challenges of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace in 2017 Hult News.” Hult

News, 25 Jan. 2018, www.hult.edu/blog/benefits-challenges-cultural-diversity-

workplace/.

Dyson, Eric. “Managing Diversity in the Workplace | Diversity | PeopleScout.” PeopleScout - A

TrueBlue Company, 26 Feb. 2018, www.peoplescout.com/getting-right-understanding-

managing-diversity-in-workplace/.

Grey, Justin. “Study Finds Diverse, Inclusive Workplaces More Productive.” MyBusiness, 21

Jan. 2013, www.mybusiness.com.au/human-resources/868-study-finds-diverse-inclusive-

workplaces-more-productive#).

Hunt, Vivian, et al. “Why Diversity Matters.” McKinsey & Company, Jan. 2015,

www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters.

Kalev, Frank DobbinAlexandra, et al. “Why Diversity Programs Fail.” Harvard Business

Review, 6 Mar. 2018, hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail.

Molinsky, Andy. “Learning to Speak Up When You're from a Culture of Deference.” Harvard

Business Review, 1 Nov. 2014, hbr.org/2014/07/learning-to-speak-up-when-youre-from-

a-culture-of-deference).

Rivera, David P. “Microaggressions: More than Just Race.” Psychology Today, Sussex

Publishers, 17 Nov. 2010, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/microaggressions-in-

everyday-life/201011/microaggressions-more-just-race.

Soghaier, Marwan. “The Digital Marketing Blog.” Mobile Storm, 31 Aug. 2010,

mobilestorm.com/digital-marketing-blog/the-importance-of-having-a-broad-skill-set-

within-any-organization/.