You are the Consultant - Research Paper Example

? The consultant Supervisor: The consultant Introduction Operations in the global business environment offer diversified challenges to organizations, their managers, and their employees. Cross-cultural difference is one of the reasons for such challenges. A global managerial perspective can however help individuals who operate in culturally diversified environments to overcome associated barriers and ensure successful interactions with other stakeholders. I therefore, in response to your questions, offer strategies that you can apply to increase job satisfaction, improve motivation, and increase performance, cultural issues that must be considered when dealing with a multicultural workforce, and possible mistakes to avoid when dealing with the type of workforce. I also explain ethical issues that the company might face and successful approaches to communicating to employees the importance of building and maintaining a sustainable global business. Strategies to increasing job satisfaction, improving motivation, and increasing performance across departments Job satisfaction is fundamental to successful human resource management. Its significance is even more important in a globalized environment because of the involved diversity. Deployment, the ability to obtain the desired skills for specific tasks in an organization’s diversified locations, is one of the applicable strategies to attaining employee satisfaction. It facilitates employee satisfaction by ensuring that employees work in environments that they are comfortable with and that they undertake tasks with which they are familiar, factors that identify interest in employees’ tasks and potentials that eliminate strains and boredom in the course of duty and instead increase satisfaction (Roberts, Kossek and Ozeki, 1998). Developing a level of understanding with employees in the globalized environment is another successful strategy to improving their job utility. Spending time with the employees, offering your time to listen to them, and reacting appropriately to their needs are instrumental in developing their sense of worth to you as their manager and to the organization. This further develops a strong bond between the employees and the organization and increases their satisfaction in working towards, and meeting, the organization’s objectives. Empowering the employees through enhancing their “knowledge, skill, and ability” to meet the organization’s objectives is another strategy to increasing their satisfaction by making their work easier through improved efficiency (Friedman, 2007, p. 160). Developing the employees’ potentials through seminars and mentorship roles also improves their efficiency and therefore interest in their jobs to enhance utility in their tasks (Friedman, 2007). Motivating employees in the global environment can similarly be achieved through psychological approaches that focus on each employee’s need. Cultural sensitivity will therefore play an important role in determining employees’ motivational factors in the diversified set up because successful motivational factors to American employees may not apply to Spanish employees. It will therefore be necessary to, besides understanding possible factors that can improve employees’ motivation, be able to understand and respond to employees cultural needs and attitudes (Osula, 2009). The developed cultural sensitivity, together with cultural awareness will further help in understanding the extent to which employees can be motivated by different factors because employees from different cultural set ups and different regions respond differently to environmental factors. Compensation and other rewards for example induce different levels of motivation across nations and cultural values are instrumental to understanding their relative effectiveness (Bloom, Milkovich and Mitra, 2003). You can also improve employees’ motivation by developing their potentials are in the organization. Training facilitates employees’ skills, increases their efficiency levels, and helps in overcoming challenges that the employees may be facing in their operations. As a result, developed potentials will increase the employees’ interest and drive towards achieving set objectives (Roberts, Kossek and Ozeki, 1998). Cultural awareness into motivation is another significant strategy to increasing the level of motivation in the organization. Analysis of the two cultures identifies differences in which Americans are more individualistic while Spaniards are averagely individualistic. This means that individual based motivational initiatives will be more successful in the organization as compared to a collective approach to which American managers and employees may not respond. Managing uncertainties and protecting employees from perceiving prevalent uncertainties is another approach to motivating the employees, especially members from the Spanish culture who are affected, adversely by uncertainties (Hofstede, 2003). Performance, being a factor of empowerment, motivation and leadership, can therefore be improved through incorporating the employee motivation and satisfaction factors such as cultural sensitivity, cultural awareness, training, developing strong interpersonal relationships, and application appropriate reward system (Friedman, 2007; Bloom, Milkovich and Mitra, 2003; Hofstede, 2003). Factors to consider when assembling a high performance team in this situation Effectiveness of individual employees is one of the factors to consider when assembling a high performance team in this situation. This is because the diversified cultures imply differences in employees and variation in levels of effectiveness different tasks and environments. Selection of the most effective employees for every task will therefore ensure a high performance team. A high performance team also requires a high level of trust and this establishes significance of honesty and reliability of each employee and the ability to develop trust among the employees as an important factor to developing a high performance team (Conant, 2012). Cultural issues that have to be addressed when dealing with a multicultural work force Some of the cultural issues that must be considered when dealing with a multicultural workforce include concepts of individualism versus collectivism, “power distance,” “masculinity/feminism,” attitudes towards uncertainties and “long term orientation” approach to issues (Hofstede, 2003, p. 1). A manager must understand level of variation between individualistic and collective orientation and determine a balance that is important in making decisions that favors a majority of the workforce. Power distance defines cultural perspective towards inequality, masculinity defines the level of competitiveness in a workforce while uncertainty avoidance indicates the degree to which people are affected by uncertainties. Long-term orientation however defines the length of time to individuals can commit to initiatives, whether for a short or long durations and establishing a balance between the diversified societies’ characteristics on these issues are essential (Hofstede, 2003). Possible blunders to be avoided Cultural insensitivity and ignoring cultural differences are possible mistakes that should be avoided in the set up. This is because such mistakes offer threats to employees’ satisfaction, motivation and performance besides developing cross cultural conflicts and barriers that hinder organizational objectives (Roberts, Kossek and Ozeki, 1998; Friedman, 2007; Hofstede, 2003). Ethical issues that the company might face Equity and integrity are some of the ethical issues that the company may face because of the diversified characteristics of the two involved cultures. Equity requires just treatment to every member of the society but the difference in cultural values towards motivational factors and job satisfaction may force the company to apply different rewards approaches to the two cultures in order to maximize on motivation. This may then force the company to conceal its reward approaches to different cultural groups or individuals, an element of dishonesty. Establishing a balance between the two cultures and using it as a basis to management is however, a solution to the possible ethical issues (Hofstede, 2003). Successful strategies to conveying to employees the importance of building and maintaining a sustainable global business Understanding cultural barriers to communication and management of the barriers is one of the strategies to conveying to the employees the importance of maintaining a sustainable global business as it bridges the cultural gap to communication. Developing close interpersonal relationships with the employees and being sensitive to their cultural background are other strategies towards effective communication of the concept (Roberts, Kossek and Ozeki, 1998; Hofstede, 2003). The major challenge in the new company set up is its cross-cultural nature. An understanding of the involved cultures and strategies to managing the cultures through cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity will however facilitate successful management. References Bloom, M., Milkovich, G., & Mitra, A. (2003). International compensation: learning from how managers respond to variations in local host contexts. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 14(8), 1350-1367. Conant, D. (2012). Building effective teams isn’t rocket science, but it’s just as hard. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved April 12, 2013, http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/consistently_building_highly_e.html. Friedman, B. (2007). Globalization implications for human resource management roles. Employment Response Rights (2007.19): 157-171. Hofstede, G. (2003). Geert Hofstede cultural dimensions. Retrieved April 12, 2013, http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html. Osula, B. (2009). Cultural awareness in intercultural mentoring: A model for enhancing mentorship. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 5(1), 37-50. Roberts, K., Kossek, E., & Ozeki, C. (1998). Managing the global workforce: Challenges and strategies. Academy of Management Executive, 12(4), 93- 106. Read More