Cultural Diversity and Inclusion in Workplace Culture Essay Example

“Diversity and inclusion are two interconnected concepts—but they are far from interchangeable. Diversity is about representation or the make-up of an entity. Inclusion is about how well the contributions, presence and perspectives of different groups of people are valued and integrated into an environment.” (Bush, 2021). Workplaces and organizations are filled with a mixed of individuals with diverse backgrounds, and they keep growing. It is important for organizations to address unconscious bias, cross-cultural barriers, and ethnocentrism that way all employees feel like they are valued, and their voices are heard. To do this, workplaces must implement a course of action to demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity and ensure there is a zero-tolerance to bias.

“Studies show that well-managed diverse groups perform better and are more committed, have higher collective intelligence, and excel at making decisions and solving problems. But research also shows that bias-prevention programs rarely deliver” (Williams & Mihaylo, 2019). Many companies spend millions of dollars on inclusive bias training, but since research shows that the results are minimal, they need to address it in different ways. “In hiring, leaders should insist on a diverse pool, precommit to objective criteria, limit referral hiring, and structure interviews around skills-based questions” (Williams & Mihaylo, 2019). When going through a hiring process, having diverse candidate pools greatly increases the odds of hiring candidates with diverse backgrounds. Having a criterion, or a rubric posted on the job listing also helps the employees performing the interview focus on the criteria and having skill-based questions greatly eliminate any sort of unconscious bias in the hiring process. This will improve the chances of hiring a diverse employee. Having a biased work force will be detrimental to any organization since the creativity from other cultural backgrounds will not be welcome.

Remote work has become a norm today, so this gives the work force the ability to hire talent across the world.  A problem that an organization might deal with when outsourcing talent will be cultural barriers. “…companies successfully break down communication and cultural barriers within their global workforces is through virtual collaboration tools supported by translation software.” (Forbes Human Resources Council, 2021). There is a lot of software out on the market that companies can use to make communication between employees simple and effortless, allowing the employees to collaborate much easier. Brining in talented employees from across the world has many advantages to this, but it also brings challenges along with it. Many employees may feel the urge to not accept the cultural background of their new employees. To deal with ethnocentrism, the organization will need to educate their workforce.

Providing cultural diversity training to the organization will need to, “provide diversity training to all employees to help them understand cultural differences” (Forbes Human Resources Council, 2021). There may be times where employees have conflicts with one another simply just because they aren’t educated on other cultures other than their own. Providing diversity training will help employees respect and appreciate other cultural backgrounds which in the end will help the company since they will be able to collaborate with ease. To many sure all employees feel cared for and that their opinions matter, virtual meetings should be held at two different times of the day so employees with different time zone can attend as well. Before any email is sent out company wide, make sure that all languages are gone over by native speakers to make sure that no context is lost during the translation. A company is set for success when there is a diverse workgroup and inclusion all around.

“A diverse team supported by an inclusive environment that values each individual will outperform a homogenous team every time.” (Holger, 2019). Having a diverse company has been proven to be more profitable than a homogenous company. There are many reasons as to by a company would benefit from inclusion, such as “Research shows that inclusive workplaces are six times more likely to be innovative and twice as likely to meet or surpass financial goals” (Hamill, 2019). An inclusive company has many characteristics, they must be able to provide their resources to all their employees. Whether it be technology or training courses, employees who feel like they can be themselves in a workplace. Giving employees an opportunity to have their voices heard will make them feel valued and reduce the chance of them leaving for another company. It must be made clear that it is okay for them to speak their voice, and managers should always be looking for ways to give employees an opportunity to do so. Inclusive companies will also acknowledge the unique skills of their employees and give them opportunities to grow and develop. If the employee feels as they are stuck and cannot develop their skills anymore, they are more likely to look elsewhere for more opportunities. Intentionally having group-oriented activities for employees to work on will promote diverse ideas and grow the bond between employees (Hamill, 2019).

Every inclusive workplace needs a course of action to demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity and respect for various cultural approaches. Some ways that this can be done by acknowledging cultural holidays. Giving employees with different cultural backgrounds the opportunities to celebrate their holidays is a way to commit to inclusivity. Some people celebrate holidays more than other so it must be considered. Requiring frequent feedback from employees gives them more opportunities to be heard and voice their opinion on certain topics. Feedback gives the employee a sense that they are cared for and can help employers address issues that employees are dealing with in a professional manner. Workers who feel comfortable in their workplace perform better. It is impossible to completely get rid of all discrimination, that’s why there needs to be policies in place that defend employees from discriminative behavior. For employees to feel safe in their workplace, organizations must enforce zero-tolerance to any bias towards any race or gender. There must be safe ways for employees to contact their managers about discrimination without putting them at risk, and the discrimination must be dealt with immediately. This will demonstrate that the organization is committing to provide inclusivity in the workplace. “Anti-discrimination policies that rely on a punitive approach are necessary but not sufficient to combat discrimination. They must be complemented by policies that specifically target (i) taste-based discrimination, through the enactment of inclusive laws and prejudice-reducing interventions, (ii) statistical discrimination, through, for instance, the increase in fathers’ share of parental leave (for a better inclusion of women) and the creation of hiring subsidies (for a better inclusion of other discriminated groups), and (iii) cognitive biases combined with attention-based discrimination, through the use of HR analytics.” (Valfort, 2018). The policies still require a lot of work to be considered effective in a workplace. Communicating these policies globally and domestically will differ. On a global level, there may be employees that live in other countries and follow different discrimination laws which will conflict with the laws that the policies are in place by with the local laws. Vice-versa, there may be local communication issues due to foreign employees having conflict with local employees due to differences in state laws. 

“Employees who perceive an unequal playing field are less likely to be fully engaged or productive than employees who feel welcome to play an important role” (Hastwell, 2020). Having diversity in a company is crucial, but so is inclusion. There needs to be ways for managers to enforce inclusion to the workplace since evidence shows that diverse workplace is more profitable. Organizations must address bias, enforce zero-tolerance policies against discrimination, and make efforts to promote inclusion in the workplace. When these characteristics are met, the workplace can benefit from a diverse workforce by receiving innovative ideas, different perspectives and different voices that would not otherwise be heard if the culturally different employees were not comfortable enough to partake in the business effectively.