Managing Cultural Diversity in the Workplace Environment of Singapore - Case Study Example

?Running head: cultural diversity in Singapore Managing cultural diversity in the workplace environment of Singapore Number: Date and Time: Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Background 3 3. Rationale 4 4. Findings 5 5. Advantages and Challenges 8 6. Conclusions 10 References 1. Introduction Diversity management is one of the core strategies used by organisations to enhance performance and sustain competitiveness in global markets. Diversity in organisations can be in the form of race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical abilities etc. Cultural diversity refers to people belonging to diverse cultures working in one organisation, which is rampant in Singapore because of its history of immigrants and also due to its growing economic prospects. The present discourse focuses on the way Singapore manages its cultural diversity. The topic explores various governmental initiatives as well as organisational policies towards diversity management in this region. During the process, a critical view of the policies and practices and their impact on other aspects of organisational performance would be placed to assess the effectiveness of the policies and practices. Moreover, possible recommendations to tackle these challenges would be suggested based on organisational practices. 2. Background: While the effects of globalization have been so profound that all organisations have to adapt to the changes, diversity is one of the strategies adopted for sustainability and performance. This reflects in their policies and practices with respect to human resources management. Though the western countries adopted this route much earlier, it is relatively newer concept in most of the Eastern nations (Mor-Barack, 2005). This does not mean that the Eastern nations did not employ people from different cultures and ethnic groups; but just that the organisations have started adopting policies and practices to encourage and, to an extent, suit multicultural and diverse populations during last few decades. The most important requirement for managing diversity comes from equal rights act and policies congruent with this act, which create favourable social, legal and organisational environment to all groups of people. Secondly, organisational policies and practices that encourage and support diversified workforce. 3. Rationale: Globalization has provided extraordinary benefits to organisations, which has enticed many organisations to enter the global market. This has further increased the numbers of people from different backgrounds, cultures, races and ethnic groups to work together at different locations. On the other hand, organisations in some sectors are known to have moved to other places in order to flourish because the legislation there was more conducive to their strategies; for example, Singapore has relaxed legislation related to bioresearch, unlike in the Western countries. Many Western bioresearch organisations shifted their base to Singapore (Huat, 2011). Much before such movements, Singapore is known for cultural diversity because it was established because of immigrants from different parts of the world, which created a plural and highly diverse and ethnic society (Chen-Tung, Ong & Chen, 1980). With such high cultural diversity, Singapore is one of the most advanced and flourished nations in the Asia-Pacific region. Many reasons make Singapore as the focus of discussion related to management of cultural diversity in organisations. The immense industrial growth in Singapore suggests that workplace diversity, specifically cultural diversity, is being managed effectively; this fact is further reinforced by the immense movement that is continuing, and potential that still exists in this part of the world. Secondly, Singapore hosts a variety of cultural mix, which makes it even more difficult for diversity management for organisations if they have to cater to the cultural differences of all groups that are a part of them. At least these two critical reasons are enough to explore diversity management principles and policies in organisations there. 4. Findings: Singapore’s efforts to match global competition and economic growth is backed by organisations such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Corporation (APEC), whose function involves exploring opportunities to expand trade and investment as well as create high quality growth. High quality growth also involves development of labour in terms of skills and competencies. In this aspect, “APEC also seeks to empower citizens with the skills and opportunities to prosper in the global economy by fostering investment in education and worker retraining, small business development, economic opportunities for women, and improvement in social safety nets” (APEC-USA, 2011). In his research, Choy (2007) highlights that the APEC lays emphasis on development of human resources for economic development in order to be on par with their counterparts in the global markets. In addition to APEC, Singapore has formed the Tripartite Alliance for Fair Employment practices, comprising of the trade unions, employers’ federation and the government (Schulte, 2009). This alliance particularly enforces organisations to recruit people based on competencies and skills, and not based on their cultural backgrounds. While these are the efforts towards HR development from government perspective, private organisations tend to adopt specific strategies and practices, both, to abide by the governmental regulations and to enhance organisational performance through diversity management. However, on a personal front, every employee comes with different cultural views and background, which has a profound impact on the way the individual thinks, acts, behaves, and responds. Cultural impact manifests in the form of dress, language, food, gestures etc and also in the form of different norms, values, standards, perception, attitudes and priorities (Ferreira, Erasmus & Groenwald, 2010). An individual’s management style is also influenced by his/her culture (Hofstede, 1980); this could create ineffective leadership, misunderstanding and inappropriate management. For instance, the leadership style of an expatriate HR manager from the USA may not match with Singaporean management style. In a country like Singapore, which hosts a variety of cultures, organisations are bound to have high cultural diversity, which makes it extremely difficult for the manager to manage his/her employees. Applying Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensions, Singaporean culture shows large power distance compared to small power distance in the US culture; this means a manager who considers subordinates as equal would be contrary to Singaporean style in which managers are considered as people of different group, inaccessible and is all powerful. Reversely, people from small power-distance cultures like the UK, New Zealand, and Canada might find it extremely difficult to work with Singaporean managers that tend to exercise power and authority without encouraging much involvement and participation from subordinates. In order to avoid such inefficiencies, an understanding of these differences in perceptions, behaviours, and beliefs will be helpful, which will improve interpersonal communication and relationships. Banfield and Kay (2008) highlight the fact organisations operating in diversified cultures, like Singapore, lay special emphasis on growth and development of its employees at the most important preference for its employees as well. For this, organisations adopt various forms of training and development programmes, which cater not only to skill and competency enhancement but also building effective organisational culture that supports diversity management. Khatri (2004) had earlier reported that the training and development programmes are more often not aligned with organisational goals, which is one of the causes of inefficient and unmotivated workforce. Nevertheless, organisations all over the world have recognized the significance of the advantages and criticality of managing diversified staff. For this, organisations have employed practices that help in effective diversity management. Although organisations have expanded their presence in multiple locations across the world, their policies and practices have not been replicated in foreign locations because of their inability to produce similar results. Hence, these organisations have sought for modified policies and practices that are congruent with local and national cultures and industrial relations of their subsidiary locations (Warner, 1998). However, in Singaporean companies, certain HR functions such as recruitment and selection and performance management are not up to the mark, yet these practices cannot be replicated from parent companies and/or from other management styles (Khatri, 2004). While this is from multinational corporations’ perspective, Choy (2007) points out that the domestic and multi-domestic organisations still employ traditional culture-influenced management style and practices because the business focus still remains on home-country. In such organisations, most of the key management positions are assigned to nationals, which is also the cause for traditional management practices being adopted instead of new practices that would suit the market conditions better. However, as Adler and Ghadar (1990) assert, in multinational business, the focus is more on cost-saving and competition, which automatically decreases the impact of cultural orientation (Choy, 2007). 5. Advantages and Challenges: Workforce diversity in Singapore has serious implications on business in terms of innovation, management, leadership, employee equality and engagement. To address these areas, organisations are adopting various strategies like recruiting both nationals and foreign staff to promote diversity, enhance innovation and improve organisational performance. From gender perspective, Singapore is known to have more women employees than men. Pang’s (1988) research identified that women’s average educational attainment is greater than that of men; however, wage differentiation between the two has been significant (Seguino, 1997). Although the wage differentiation and growth opportunities for women have reduced in recent times, these discriminations still seem to exist when compared to their male counterparts (Fang & Sakellariou, 2011). This is attributed to the various gender-specific policies provided to women such as parental provisions, childcare, maternity etc. To encourage women participation in workforce, other facilities like part-time and flexi-time work arrangements are promoted (Chia & Lim, 2010). This shows that few policies and practices meant to promote diversity are also hindering the advancement of some group of individuals in other ways. Singapore is known to house maximum percentage of aged citizens, one of the fastest growing. To help the aged citizens, Singaporean Government has introduced retirement schemes to improve their employability beyond age of 60 (Chia & Lim, 2010). Employee turnover is a major concern for HR managers in Singapore. Khatri (2004) reports that many educated women tend to take a break during their career to attend to family issues, and would want to join back after some time. This gap is not encouraged by the managers, who prefer to hire inexperienced people that switch jobs more often. Khatri (2004) suggests that HR managers must encourage recruitment of older and experienced women that are less likely to switch jobs more often. In The Business Times (2009, July), Schulte (2009) states, ‘A country which has a workforce that contains this wider diversity will be even better positioned in attracting foreign investments as it can offer a more mature and experienced workforce. The mix of competencies involved in the wider diversity offers a range of opportunities, provided the focus of the workforce is on skills and competencies and provided those skills and competencies can be deployed effectively and easily.’ This statement demonstrates how Singapore can be considered as the epitome of cultural diversity and immense growth. In Singapore, organisations’ focus on growth and development of their employees through training initiatives like delegation, teamwork, empowerment, sharing responsibility etc would be of great help in a mixed culture. These training programmes help individuals to understand management from different perspectives, which includes different cultural influences. Effective diversity management not only promotes equality and minimizes discrimination, it improves employee motivation, commitment and thereby performance. This will further lower employee turnover, internal conflicts and increases job satisfaction. However, limitations to different diversity management practices also surface. For instance, the women-oriented practices meant to encourage greater employment for women somewhere hinders women’s advancement in their careers. Moreover, anti-discrimination practices can also be viewed as biasness towards one specific group or culture. Evidences indicate that many international organisations operating in Singapore have modified their strategies, policies and practices to suit the diverse culture in Singapore (Briscoe, Schuler & Claus, 2008). This is to address the issues of ethical attitudes and practices followed in other countries, which may not be applicable or might not work well in Singapore. 6. Conclusion: In conclusion, while diversity management provides great way to improve organisational performance and employee commitment, this strategy also comes with challenges. Hofstede’s (1980) extensive work identified that there is a link between national culture and corporate cultures, a finding that has produced new dimension to human resource management in the international realm. Further, its growing economy supported by the government is another reason for continued immigration from all other parts of the world. To manage diversity, Singaporean organisations are receiving much support from the government and its agencies in the form of legislation and policies. Further, organisations are adopting specific measures to enhance awareness of effective diversity management through training, hiring, and specific policies and practices. However, these practices come with hidden challenges, which can be realized only upon application of the practices. 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