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Managing Cultural Diversity in

the Workplace
Cultural differences are usually created by race-ethnicity, gender, function, and tenure
among the organization factors. Difference in culture may result to the rise of conflicts
among team members. This usually results to disrupted communication within the
organization and eventually negative outcomes. Therefore, it is the role of every
organization and entire management to come up with various ways of managing and
reducing negative effects of cultural differences. Management in various organizations
should ensure that they are able to detect and avoid such cases from arising. Political
backgrounds and experience are other major factors that contribute to cultural
differences. Multicultural teams and differences in most occasions generate dilemmas in
the organization management. Cultural differences usually create considerable obstacles
to efficient teamwork. Recognizing various underlying cultural causes of conflicts is the
main challenge in managing multicultural teams by organizations’ management. It is
also a great challenge for management to get teams back into the track as well as
empowering members to manage and deal with the challenges of cultural differences in
future. Work-group diversity has become one of the most challenging issues that are
facing various organizations currently. Various factors like demographic, cultural and
legal factors have greatly changed the composition of organizations’ work forces.
Demographic factors include multiculturalism, equality initiatives, globalization, and
declining birth rates. Therefore, this requires managers, employers, and employees to be
sensitive to both intra and inter-group differences. They are also required to adopt
practices and policies which are effective in coping with such changes.

Managers and team members can manage cultural differences. This is only possible if
they adopt and chose the right strategies within their organizations. Cultural difference
poses various challenges which include hindering success within the organization. They
pose as a barrier to effective communication which is a key element in any organization.
Cultural difference creates differing attitudes towards authority and hierarchy hence
difference in the ways people are treated. It also leads to conflicts especially
when making decisions. These challenges are a great hindrance towards success and
development of any organization. Therefore, managers need to come up with various
strategies and policies in ensuring cultural differences and challenges are eliminated.
 There are four main strategies of dealing with cultural challenges for managers and
various teams in organizations. They include adaption, structural intervention,
managerial intervention and exit. Adaption mainly involves acknowledgement of cultural
gaps frankly and even working around them. Managerial intervention involves early
setting of norms and even bringing in of high-level management. Structural intervention
is changing of the team’s shape. Exit involves removing a team member in case the
options have failed. They are several steps that any organization’s management can
adopt in dealing and eliminating cultural differences. Identification of the challenge is
the key and first step in dealing with multicultural differences. Assessing the
circumstances under which the differences are occurring is another crucial step towards
dealing with multicultural differences.

1. Adaption is a great strategy that organizations encourage in dealing with cultural diversity. This
involves teams finding various ways of working with and around the challenge that they
encounter. It also involves adapting practices and attitudes without necessarily making changes
to the assignment of the group. Adaption works well when members of the team or
organization acknowledge and even name their differences in culture as well as assuming their
responsibilities. It also involves figuring on various ways to live with the cultural differences.
Adaption has been seen as the best way of dealing with cultural diversity difference as it does
not demand a lot of time as compared to other strategies. This is mainly because members of
the team take part in problem solving while learning from the process. This kind of mind set
plays a great role in ensuring there are creative in protecting their cultural differences within the
organization. Organization taking this type of initiative ensures that cultural diversity does not
affect its performance and operations among its teams. Various organizations’ managements
have found adaption as an ideal strategy towards solving cultural diversity. This is mainly
because it is effective and solves its own problem with little input from management. Team
members must be aware of this strategy in order for it to be successful in solving the intended
problems or differences. However, negotiating a common understanding may take sometime
among the team members.
2. Structural intervention is another way that organizations are utilizing in ensuring they manage
the cultural diversity. It is an intentional reorganization or reassignment that is designed to
reduce or eliminate source of conflict between people or teams. It is also intended to reduce
interpersonal frictions that largely contribute to cultural diversity. The strategy works effectively
when obvious subgroups separate the team. This is mainly if team members are clinging to
negative stereotypes of one another or feel threatened. Structural intervention also involves
creating smaller working groups of diversified cultures. This enables team members to know and
even respect every team member. Various organizations utilize or use this strategy as it
encourages reduction of cultural diversity within the organization. Structural intervention as a
strategy for managing cultural diversity shields people who are not working well in a team.
3. Managerial intervention also plays a vital role in solving organization’s cultural diversity
effects. Although the failure to involve team in decision making may result to a stalemate, it is
important for managers to intervene when cultural diversity blocks the success of decision
making. Managerial intervention has been used in many occasions by various organizations to
 solve sort out its problems effectively. Setting norms early in a team through managerial
intervention assists the team towards starting out effectively. Managers encourage team
members to encourage each other towards ensuring everybody is appreciated and encouraged
to work with each other despite cultural diversity. Managers address the issues like language
barrier and ethnic diversity directly. They encourage them on various ways to solve cultural
diversity within the team and entire organization.
4. Exit is another strategy that is utilized towards reducing the problems of cultural diversity. This
is usually the last and infrequent strategy towards managing cultural differences. It is important
for those members who are not happy with their teams to move out of the team to another
team. This will ensure there is continued delivery of efficient services. Exit of one or several
members is used by organizations as a last resort. One or several members of the team or
organization may be kindly requested formally by management to exit. They may also exit
voluntarily from the team.

Managing a diverse culture within an organization is not an easy task. Realizing and
managing cultural diversity within an organization has been on the increase. This is
assisting greatly in facilitating organizational progress and success. On a broad
perspective, organizations can manage cultural diversity through communication. This is
creating awareness among the employees and various teams on the importance of
diverse values of peers. Another way is through cultivating; this is facilitating
encouragement, support, and appreciation of any employee’ achievement by all other
colleagues. Diverse culture can also be managed through capitalizing strategies. This
involves linking diversity to every process of business and strategy such as employee
development, re-engineering, succession planning, performance review and
management.

Organizations also adopt various innovative ways towards management of cultural

diversity. This includes incorporating various people from different cultural backgrounds
as well as acknowledging the importance of their cultural. Appreciating people cultural
background usually leads to reduced background differences. This ensures there is a
common organizational diversity that does not affect the performance of various teams.
Organizations have also started empowerment to all members regardless of race or
gender. Empowerment is crucial towards making of an effective decision making.
Towards reducing culture diversity difference, organizations are encouraging free
contribution towards decision making processes. Utilization of empowerment in diverse
organizations results to more trust among the team members as well as higher
productivity. Empowerment in an organization with diverse culture has been seen to
make team members feel their contribution in a manner that is more worthwhile and
meaningful. This assists greatly towards improvement of diversity climate hence
accomplishment of organization objectives.
It is also crucial for various organizations to initiate diversity training programs. Leaders
and managers in organizations should be trained on how to manage and understand
culturally diversified employees. Employees as well should be provided with adequate
training on the importance of understanding people with different cultures. This will
greatly assist in improving the differences that arise when people of different cultures
work together. Training is crucial towards the breakdown of stereotypes as well as
reducing prejudicial attitudes among the team members. Mentoring and networks are
other effective ways towards improvement of the diversity climate. Mentors usually
provide recognition, support, and challenge in order to assist in shaping the future for
those individuals they are assisting. Mentors are in most occasions beneficial mainly
because it assists in keeping minorities on the track. It also assists in keeping them
focused within any culturally diversified organization. Networking is also another crucial
process that assists organizations in managing the cultural diversity within the teams.
Networking acts as a source of encouragement and support to various employees with
diversified cultural differences.

It is also crucial for organizations to strength top-management commitment towards

creating a positive diversity climate within the organization. This commitment should be
distributed even to the lowest management levels. All managers at every level within an
organization should openly and strongly support all policies, strategies, and practices
that support the management of culture diversity. This will greatly assist towards
reducing culture diversification related challenges within an organization. It will assist in
improving and increasing the benefits associated with culture diversity.