CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Managing Cultural Diversity at Work Place

Managing Cultural Diversity at Work Place

Introduction

The essay focuses on the prime concepts of managing cultural diversity at workplace and highlights the recent changes that one can observe in managing workforce diversity. It also discusses the varied effects globalization that is evident from the changing corporate practices and strategies to manage cultural diversity in an effective manner. It is a fact that diverse workforce adds richness to the corporate culture and organization's public image. However, it also poses serious problems and issues for the leaders to effectively manage a vast network of diverse internal customers (employees). An effort is made to signify the major factors that may shape the personality of employees with diverse cultural background and the kind of difficulties it may raise for the corporate leaders.

Discussion

The trend of globalization and its consequential convergence-divergence in the world of business has brought significant changes in the universal practices and management of human resource. Globalization has being the root cause of major reforms in the leadership styles and approaches that the corporate world has seen so far and is even exploring around. Every day sun rises with new challenges of managing cultural diversity and ends with endless leadership efforts to maintain employee morale high by addressing the varied values and needs of employees with diverse cultural backgrounds. Employee mobility and the trend of boundary-less organizations has been among the other macro economic factors that contributed to the increased challenges that today's corporate leadership is exposed with in the field of managing the cultural diversity in their facilities and offices located across the globe.

Globalization

The concept of globalization has been a composition of an ongoing process of greater interdependence among different countries and their natives. It is being recognized as multifaceted and complex process that is claimed to be the cause of major shifts in the global business practices and the approaches to manage cultural diversity (Fischer, 2003).

Globalization has significant impact on the multiculturalism of modern societies and it has been accused for disrupting the traditional identities and fragile societies. However, it is a fact that globalization is being fostering and allowing for differences. The trend of globalization has composed the universe into a global village where cultural identity has been the central factor that shapes the antagonism and association of a country (Sotshangane, 2002).

Personality of Employees and Difficulties Faced by Leaders

Leaders of the new millennium are being faced with numerous challenges and issue of the corporate environment that make it critical for managers to effectively manage the cultural diversity at various workstations and business locations. One of the prime factors that have posed challenges for today's leaders is the varied personality attributed and characteristics of the diverse workforce. In order to lead the corporate in an effective manner while satisfying the needs and cultural demands of each employee, a leader has to be competitive and alarmed to see the long term impacts of any kind of change process initiated in the ...