Managing Cultural Diversity - Term Paper Example

MANAGING CULTURAL DIVERSITY Table of Contents Introduction 3 Managing cultural diversity 4 Definition of culture and cultural diversity 4 Increasing importance of managing cultural diversity in the hospitality industry 5 Policies and strategies of managing cultural diversity 6 Training 7 Managing culture shock 9 Conclusion 10 References 11 Introduction This report will discuss management of cultural diversity in the hospitality industry by reviewing literatures. Cultural diversity is very important in any other industry; this report aims at outlining strategies that organizations in the hospitality industry use in integrating their workforce, as well as in ensuring diversity in the workplace. Similarly, the report attempts to answer questions related to the importance of cultural diversity at work places and the policies adopted by organizations to deal with and manage it. This is because, development of the cultural workforce diversity is on the increase among organizations, and different industries are adopting the approach. Moreover, this report links to learning outcome because it allows students understand different concepts employed in ensuring organizations achieve a culturally diverse workforce. The developments in technology and globalization have facilitated the movement of people and goods; thus, the hotel industry has recorded booming business because of such developments. People from all walks of life visit different places as tourists, employees, and business people, thus they encounter different people in different environments or locations. The hospitality industry plays a major role in accommodating them despite their social background,ensuring that they feel at home despite being away. Therefore, managing such a workforce of personalities from different cultures is important to every manager, leader, or organization and they must do all they can, within their reach, to ensure that they meet set goals. The learning outcome of the course or unit focuses on these issues, making the topic important. The report will begin by first defining culture and cultural diversity since they are the key terms used and the core of the report. It will then outline the reasons why managing cultural diversity has been increasingly important in the hospitality industry by discussing its benefits. Additionally, the report will focus on the policies and strategies used in managing cultural diversity in the hospitality industry and finally make a conclusion. Managing cultural diversity Definition of culture and cultural diversity The definition of culture keeps changing over time as people adopt different lifestyles resulting from the changing technology and innovation. In the early 19th century, Lashley and Lee-Ross (2003) defined culture as complex while including; morals, laws, belief, arts, and customs among other habits which humanity adopts to live in a society. However, this definition has since changed; the modern definition comprises of early definition together with new information, which relates to the modern way of life in the society. Therefore, culture can also be defined as a combination of values, orientations, policies, and beliefs thata group of people shares; it influences their conduct as well as the interpretations of their behavior (Kossek & Lobel 2006). In business terms, culture is the organizational values, beliefs, and assumptions, which employees and management identifies with in the course of their operation to meet the company’s goals (Gardenswarzt & Rowe 2009). Secondly, cultural diversity is a very important aspect for any organization, because of its enrichment from different social backgrounds. Hence, cultural diversity is defined as a collective mixture of differences and similarities, applied by an organization to meet its goals (Clements & Jones 2006). This means that cultural diversity is a combination of different cultures and orientation of employees. It does not only deal with a combination of different cultures, but entails religion, gender, class among other factors at the workplace (Chemers, Oskamp& Costanzo 2005). Therefore, diversity of employees in a given organization creates a difference in the way they relate to one another, how they carry out their duties, and behaviors among other activities. Hence, it is upon the management to ensure that it harmonizes different cultures that compose the workforce in the organization. Increasing importance of managing cultural diversity in the hospitality industry Most organizations in the hospitality industry have seen the benefits of managing diversity at the workplace and the practice is on the rise (Baum 2006) Work diversity brings a pool of knowledge from individuals with differentbackgrounds, which has become essentialin bringing new ideas and innovation at the workplace and other environments. Similarly, a diversified workforce has various values and beliefs, which are essential in making the organization venture into different regions through its diverse workforce (Kossek&Lobel 2006). Besides, there are many benefits associated with managing cultural diversity. Managing cultural diversity results in increased innovation at workplace (Thornhill et al 2000). The broad based cultural experience among employees drives innovation, since they bring a rich experience from their social backgrounds (Mor 2014). In an organization where the workforce shares similar experience and background, they tend to think the same way, hence limiting innovation. Cultural diversity goes beyond “group-think”. As a result, it improves business in a unique way through adoption of new ideas (Cox 2003). Cultural diversity is important because it attracts employees and customers (Chin 2011). Many employeeswant to work in an organization with a diversified workforce; Forbes magazine supports the argument in the research it conducted (Ozbilgin&Tatli2008). Forbes found that any business that wants to attract an effective workforce and customer’sbase must diversify across cultures. Similarly, some customers prefer to be served by employees who understands their culture and pays attention to ethics related to them (Johnson 2003). Additionally, cultural diversity has proved to be important in gathering cultural intelligence (Hofstede2004). It helps the organization to know the value customers hold as well as ways it can use to acquire a competitive advantage over them (Okoro & Washington 2012). Hence, a culturally diverse workforce assists the organization in learning what other cultures appreciates (Madera 2011). Therefore, adopting these values as part of the business message helps in establishing a good relationship between the organization and the people (Hanashiro & Carvalho 2008). Businesses that operate considering diversity and shared value expand their profits and customer base. Although there are many benefits associated with cultural diversity in the organization, it has many challenges as well (Frumkin 2005). For instance, there are a lot of conflict cases that managers records (Fortier & Ford 2011). This occurs because employees are not able to embrace different values, which others have. It results to cultural clash leading to conflict (Adu-Febiri 2006). Similarly, it is very difficult to implement since recruiting across the board is expensive (Antun, Strick & Thomas 2007). Many mangers are not able to observe ethical values among different cultures making it a challenge (Bayes & Prewitt 2008). Besides, some employees are not willing to leave their culture and transforming them is very difficult (Okoro & Washington 2012). Policies and strategies of managing cultural diversity Cultural diversity in the hospitality industry has been very important for many organizations, because it provides different perspectives when making decisions. It also helps organizations in broadening their market reach and gives everyone a chance to advance and excel in every quarter (Gröschl 2011). However, many organizations in the hospitality industry have not been able to implement it and realize results. This is because they do not give it a passionate approach to help them overcome the obstacles associated with its implementation. Nevertheless, other companies have successfully managed cultural diversity at workplace and realized positive results (Madera 2011). Therefore, many options are available for organization in the hospitality industry to use towards managing their cultural diversity as will be discussed in the subsequent paragraphs. Training Diversity training is very fundamental for organizations that want to manage cultural diversity at the workplace (Jackson 2012). Not all employees are able to cope with culturally diverse work environments, hence require training to find the place comfortable. Organizational leadership establishes the goals of their training and the key areas they want incorporated into their training, and this contributes to managing multicultural workforce (Ersoy 2014). Hence, the hospitality industry trains its diverse workforce on the needs to embrace the multi-cultural environment through inviting speakers and expertise for presentations (Tom et al. 2007). Moreover, organizations in the hospitality industry reinforce the points discussed during the presentation in office procedures and policies (Dimitrov 2012). This has proved to be essential in creating work environment awareness as well as making the workforce accept one another with their diversity. Many organizations such as Panary Hotel, Hilton among others, have always trained their workforce in management of diversity to bring uniformity at workplace (Mkono 2010). In turn, these organizations have realized tremendous results. Organizations such as NikiLeondak is embraced cultural diversity by taking a proactive approach, which involved creating harmony, and a respectful work environment, and making it part of the organizational mission (Antun, Strick & Thomas 2007). The company also crated long-term action plans to highlight the importance of diversity at the work place to employees and the organization. Therefore, the company ensured that all executives, managers, and supervisors learned cultural diversity and saw the importance of working together in achieving the mission. Similarly, the management was trained on cultural competencies to give them insight to better manage the employees (Antun, Strick& Thomas 2007). From this perspective, it is evident that managing cultural diversity begins by training top leadership and trickle down to junior employees. Leadership must embrace the organizational diversity and evaluate its importance before implementing and it is important is eliminating failures which might arise. Offering training to human resource managers is very important in making organization mange its multi-cultural workforce. Most organizations in the hotel industry, such as Hilton, Serena among other big organizations, train their personnel on the important of diversifying its workforce to have a world image (Devine, Baum, Hearns & Devine 2007). This makes them recruit personnel who have diverse experience and backgrounds, and with the ability to accommodate the diversity of clients and fellow employees. Similarly, organizations in the hospitality industry train employees or new recruits on their expectations and ways to relate the diverse cultural environment (Horwitz, 2002). Employees are one of the most important assets an organization can ever have (Wrench 2007). This has made many organizations to train their employees continuously on ways to relate with one another and minimize conflict at workplace (Perez-Floriano & Gonzalez 2007). Conflict is one of the challenges mostly experience in a multicultural environment since there are different values and beliefs which keeps them apart (Kossek & Lobel 2006). Therefore, employees are trained on interpersonal relationship on ways of accommodating other cultures. This has proved to be useful in minimizing cultural clash in many organizations (Devine, Baum, Hearns & Devine 2007). Employees embrace their diversity and feel it is the foundation of their strength hence copes with one another. Managing culture shock Most employees find it hard coping in a new environment marked with different cultures. This shock results when values and beliefs clash. Therefore, they lack compatibility with the known ones (Joyce 2011). In such situations, employees do not know the steps to take and at times face anxiety and loneliness. It normally occurs in multi-national organizations or those operating in different locations throughout the world. In such cases, most organizations help employees with the best strategies of coping with the cultural practices, as well as to harmonize oneself with the people. For instance, Hilton Hotel helps its employees overcome culture shock by exposing them to the environment before they begin working or commence their duties (Holaday 2007). Their strategy has proved to be important in managing workforce diversity by familiarizing the workforce with the environment. Learning language a language that is not yours has proved to be so important in managing cultural shock (Gröschl 2011). Most people become lonely and shocked when they get into a region where they cannotunderstand what others speak andsometimes have no understandingconcerning the signs language used. Many employees who go for oversee operations experience such problems hence posing challenge to many managers (Hanashiro & Carvalho 2008). However, some organizations have managed to overcome all these by training their employees on the language used in where they will work. This makes employees to get familiar with the language hence minimizingcultural shock. Transition period is one important aspect of managing culture shock many organizations use (Gröschl 2011). For instance, multinational organizations send their employees to oversea missions where they engage various cultures they are not familiar with. This can sometimes be difficult integrating into ones culture and accepting it as a way of life. However, many organizations gives their employees transitional period to enable them accept and consider the new culture (Antun, Strick & Thomas 2007). Organizations that do these benefits themselves and employees since they help them get used to the new culture by offering them support they need to overcome them. Similarly, they also helps employees who are back from oversee missions to cooperate and accept their and shed the oversea culture. Lastly, organizations overcome or manage cultural shock by making employees or workforce know about their surroundings (Kossek & Lobel 2006). It entails taking employees to trips and other outings with the aim of familiarizing themselves with the local practices. Similarly, organization knows their environment by joining familiar clubs and association which can make them feel home. This means that employees get to learn about the environment through the company’s exposure (Okoro & Washington 2012). In turn, employees do not get shocked when they experience any unfamiliar scenario since they already had exposure. The trend is very common among multinational organizations because their operations involve working in multicultural environments and shift their employees from one area to another. Therefore, they expose their employees to know various environments they work in order to overcome any cultural shock they may experience. Conclusion In conclusion, this report has discussed the meaning of culture and cultural diversity and its relation to the hospitality industry. Globalization and increased technological advancement has facilitated movement of the workforce from every corner of the world to another in search of work or employment opportunities, leisure time, investments among others. Hence, many organizations within the hospitality industry have been able to consider the diversity of their workforce in order to acquire a competitive advantage. Similarly, many organizations embrace cultural diversity because of market intelligence, as it provides themwitha better experience and understanding of the customers. Besides, organizations adopt a culturally diverse workforce because it is innovative. However, many organizations have not been able to achieve such objectives since they do not know how to manage the diverse workshop; therefore, it is very challenging and demands many resources to implement. 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