Why cross-cultural management is important in todays workplace?

INTRODUCTION
Cross cultural management is a knowledge that tries to understand how the national culture influence management practices, identify the difference and similarities of cross cultural in management practices and various organizational context, and to increase the effectiveness in global management.
In this globalization era, there are so many multinational company or organization in the world. Indeed, there are elements in that company which is consist of various kind of countries, ethnics, traditions, religions, etc. Therefore, we need a system to manage the company and also to control the professionalism in our company. Let’s say if there is a problem in our company which is consist of many diversity, so here is the role of cross…show more content…
Because differences in cultural background could lead individuals to have a misunderstanding with each other, we know that either verbal or non-verbal language in one place and another place is different. As a social creature, we cannot live without communicate with another people. What would happen if we cannot adapting the understanding of each other, each country also need to interact each other. That’s why there are so many media in the world including internet which can connecting one country with another country in order to providing information about everything happened in that country. Therefore, it is very important for us to study about cross cultural communication in order to know and understanding how to interact with people who has a different cultural background with us. And we can interact effectively with a cross cultural communication…show more content…

Adapting your own behaviors
Global managers have their own culture indeed, but they need to remember that their culture have a big influence into their company. They can not only assume and make a decision just based on their own culture. They need to adjust their behaviors according to the situation in that company. 3. Managing the relationship between culture diversity A difficult challenge for global managers is to understand and manage the relationship between people inside the company which consist of various culture. They need to train and teach all of the employees about cross cultural management so that they can prevent culture conflicts. 4. Communicating across barriers. Communication is a big challenge in every company, we need to communicate well into everyone. It is more complex and difficult if a manager have to communicate or operate from a distance. Good global managers can overcome geographic, culture, and language barriers. 5. Understanding and managing external forces

In global business, managers need to learn many external forces that influence their work. External forces affect how the company operate. And sometimes managers must accept that these factors are beyond their

National borders are no longer the barriers they once were. Even if your firm does not sell internationally, you’ll still likely need good cross-cultural management when interacting with employees from different countries across the globe. 

With more than 230 million employees around the world and 1 in 10 people in OECD countries being expats, the number of companies employing individuals from diverse backgrounds and cultures is steadily rising.

Recruiting people from diverse cultural backgrounds offers a lot to your business. It means you have access to a much wider pool of talent than ever before. Such recruits can offer alternative ways of thinking and doing that can revitalize your organization, open up new opportunities and take your business in directions you might never have contemplated. 

However, while the liberalization of international markets can remove legal and regulatory obstacles, cultural differences remain. Such differences can show up in work practices, expectations, etiquette, values, attitudes, and, of course, language.

According to PWC, although 75% of organizations claim that diversity is a priority or expressed value for them, 32% of these same businesses consider diversity a hindrance to their growth.

This discrepancy is likely due to the fact that even though many companies pursue and appreciate diversity, they don’t have the necessary knowledge to lead diverse teams or cultivate respect for cultural differences in the workplace. Without properly managing employees from diverse backgrounds, conflicts will always arise and progress will be impeded. 

It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming your own worldview is the right one and judging other people accordingly. If you don’t learn to understand this cultural bias and become more aware of cultural differences you could end up with poorly performing staff, low morale and sales leads that go nowhere. 

Good cross-cultural management skills are essential to avoid giving offense, creating friction, and damaging your bottom line.

Therefore, to maximize all that diversity has to offer your business, it’s critical to learn the principles and strategies of cross-cultural management. In this article, we’ll cover cross-cultural management, its benefits, and best practices.

What is cross-cultural management?

Cross-cultural management is the act of employing, leading, and supporting individuals from different backgrounds. Although embracing diversity starts with recruitment and the hiring process, there’s a lot more work to be done once you have assembled a diverse team.

Diversity is beneficial, but only if the team can effectively communicate, coordinate, reach a consensus and work towards common goals. 

However, a successfully integrated multicultural team of employees of various nationalities does not happen by itself. It needs to be built through good cross-cultural management. 

How your employees work, communicate, make decisions and solve problems can vary depending on their culture. There are few one-size-fits-all solutions in a multicultural environment. Understanding, anticipating, and mitigating these differences to maximize the advantages of a diverse workforce and minimize the pitfalls is your task as a manager.

This includes navigating work challenges that diversity brings about: 

• Addressing prejudices employees might have about other cultures;
• Making sure minority groups of workers don’t feel left out or undervalued;
• Helping employees from all backgrounds express their true selves at work. 

For this reason, you must learn how to enact cross-cultural management policies and practices that ensure inclusivity and productivity in the workplace.

Overall, the efforts of cross-cultural management aim to protect employees’ physical safety and mental health, as well as foster healthy and meaningful relationships with others in the workplace. This makes cross-cultural management an integral aspect of leading diverse teams.

4 reasons cross-cultural management matters

Cross-cultural management provides advantages for companies and employees alike. Here are the top ways it could benefit your team and your organization:

• Cross-cultural management makes a company globally competitive when attracting new talent. About 76% of job seekers and employees believe that a diverse workforce is important when evaluating job offers. Thus, presenting the intentional ways in which your business fosters respect for this diversity in the workplace can set you apart from other competitors.
• Companies that utilize diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts can increase employee retention rates. Specifically, creating a more inclusive work environment results in organizations being 2.6 times more likely to engage and retain their workforce.
• Businesses’ D&I endeavors enhance employee job satisfaction. According to a study by The Workforce Happiness Index in 2021, employees from organizations that fail to prioritize inclusion and diversity scored only 63 in satisfaction, while those from organizations that do scored 75.
• Effective cross-cultural management can motivate employees at work. According to a recent research study, D&I practices positively correlate to efficient performance and high-quality work.

Ten top tips for effective cross-cultural management

Knowledge, training, and language lessons are the basic tools you need to invest in to become better at cross-cultural management. 

By minimizing friction and successfully building multicultural teams you could increase efficiency and innovation and boost performance by 35%. 

Managing workplace diversity holds many challenges, including breakdowns in communication, resistance to change, and lack of integration. However, you are not alone in trying to overcome these difficulties–there are many D&I pioneers who have identified the best strategies and tactics to generate inclusivity in their workplaces. 

As such, we have compiled some helpful tips you can employ to promote more effective cross-cultural management.

1) Practice self-awareness

The advice of the ancient Greeks to “know thyself” is entirely appropriate when we’re considering managing multicultural teams. 

The first step in successfully understanding where cultural differences begin and end is to accept that you are also a product of a specific culture that is not the global default, as much as you might feel like it should be. It can be hard to perceive your own biases but it will become easier with practice. 

Realize that there are many valid ways to do even basic things like eating, talking, gesturing, scheduling, or reaching decisions. 

The ways you are used to may seem the most efficient and logical to you, but that is because you are perceiving them from within your own culture where everything is tightly linked together to form an overall context. 

In other cultures, where the parts may work together differently, alternative methods may in fact be the more logical and reasonable options. This is because our cultures have evolved in various circumstances affected by geography, climate, history, religion, and political systems and different solutions had to be found. 

If employees may behave or react in unexpected ways that are outside the norm for your culture, it is important to recognize that such behavior may be a manifestation of their cultural values and beliefs rather than a personal attribute. By paying attention you may notice patterns exhibited by employees from the same or similar cultures. It’s a good idea to contemplate the reason for such behaviors or even ask employees in a sensitive manner why they acted in a certain way. 

Investing in cultural context training is a good way to get a handle on such nuances and prepare yourself for various eventualities ahead of time.

2) Language management

Language can obviously be one of the most prominent concerns when it comes to managing a multicultural workforce. 

Even if you have a common working language and take great pains to recruit employees with good linguistic skills or invest in a high-quality language training program, fluency will vary from person to person. 

Native speakers may have difficulty adjusting their messaging and reducing the use of slang or euphemisms, making it hard for even proficient non-native speakers to correctly interpret what’s being said which could lead to them making the wrong decisions fully under the impression that they are doing exactly what has been requested. This issue can be compounded when teams are interacting remotely or virtually where body language and tone may be attenuated or missing entirely.

Typical daily behaviors such as jokes or sarcastic comments can result in misunderstanding, tension, or conflict. In some cultures, even inoffensive jokes are seen as unprofessional. Small talk can be seen as a sign of inefficiency in some cultures while in others it is an essential sign of respect. 

In multicultural teams it is not a good idea to speak at the pace you would use with fellow native speakers. 

Speaking a bit more slowly, clearly, and with a more exaggerated pronunciation than normal is the best approach. Aim for a neutral accent. 

Use short sentences and small words, pausing slightly between important messages to allow your listener time to assimilate your speech. You should be able to see from people’s expressions whether they’re following along or not. 

Conversely, if someone else is talking too fast or with a strong accent, it’s okay to ask them to slow down or repeat themselves. 

When it comes to important figures, measurements or calculations, feel free to write them down as numbers can be easily misunderstood when people are speaking in languages other than their mother tongues. 

When you ask questions, try to ask open questions that allow for more than a yes/no answer. In some parts of the world, people don’t like to say no as it is considered impolite.

We usually think of listening as a passive activity, but in cross-cultural communication, it needs to be an active one. Active listening involves paying close attention to a speaker, restating what you’ve understood, and asking questions to check you get what they’re saying. This not only helps avoid misunderstandings it also strengthens your rapport with the speaker. 

In the interests of cohesion and morale, it’s not a bad idea to encourage employees to learn some basic vocabulary or phrases in each other’s languages. This will foster understanding and make everyone feel valued even if the working language is not their native one. 

Prolonged silence may be seen as problematic in English-speaking cultures but, in many countries, it is used as a sign of respect. Where Americans or British people might use filler phrases such as “I see” or “Uh-huh” to show they’re listening to you, an Asian person might use silence during a conversation as a sign that they’re paying attention and considering your words. 

3) Offer equal employment opportunities (EEO)

Utilizing cross-cultural management means that you will not tolerate bias in recruitment, compensation, promotion, termination, or any other process at work. By doing so, you also set the standard for how your employees should treat one another.

For example, avoid bias when promoting employees by looking at past performance reviews to see if certain groups are favored (e.g., nationalities, genders, abilities, races). Step back and try to root out any unintended bias in your future evaluations. Additionally, Forbes recommends relying on technology to remove bias in the hiring process.

Ensuring equal opportunities for all employees as a part of your cross-cultural management strategy generates a diversity-friendly workplace.

4) Discourage unconscious cultural bias

Discrimination doesn’t just happen in the hiring and promotion process. It also influences your team’s daily decisions, even if they don’t realize it. For example, 2/3 of black HR managers believe black employees aren’t given enough opportunities–but their white colleagues don’t see it that way. The goal, then, is to reduce, if not totally eradicate, bias at work so that everyone gets a fair chance of succeeding.

One way to achieve this goal is to increase employees’ awareness of their own bias by conducting unconscious bias seminars or workshops. You can also set house rules that encourage workers to identify prejudice in the office and find ways of addressing it. You can assign diversity leaders–individuals who can inspire change in your company.

Cultural bias can often go undetected, so leaders of cross-cultural management should continuously be looking for ways to eliminate it ​​from their workplace practices and procedures.

cross cultural management

5) Address cross-cultural conflicts

When employees from diverse cultures work together, there are differences in how they communicate and collaborate with one another. These differences, amidst the pressure and stress of work responsibilities, have the potential to develop into conflicts. When this occurs, resolve the dispute as soon as possible to prevent damaging consequences, including possible legal action.

To effectively address conflicts at work, start by trying to understand its root cause and enforce change where needed. For example, let’s say a Chinese woman has been receiving insults and threats from a colleague due to her nationality, so she raises a complaint of racial discrimination in your office. 

Since racial bias triggered this incident, imposing sanctions, like suspension or dismissal, on racist harassment could deter such behavior and avert this problem in the future.

Cross-cultural management can restore harmony in the workplace so that your team can focus their attention on being productive and meeting company goals. However, D&I initiatives should implement preventative measures to attempt to avoid these situations in the first place.

6) Provide cross-cultural training programs

The more diverse your employees are, the more challenging it can be for them to connect with each other. To tackle this issue,  you can invest in cross-cultural language training programs, which equip workers with skills to more effectively interact and collaborate with other cultures.

For example, how frank and forthcoming people are can be dependent on their culture and this can be a source of conflict. Germans tend to be so blunt and straightforward in their communication that it can be taken as rude by Americans who in turn can seem too direct to people from Asia or Latin America where the tendency is to be more indirect and avoid conflict. Conversational topics might be okay in some places but taboo in others. For example, Chinese people feel comfortable asking questions about someone’s salary, weight, or marital status which may be unwelcome for Americans. 

There is also a broad spectrum of how people work across different cultures. Collaboration and consensus are dominant in some, individual opinions and initiative are the norm in others and a more hierarchical manager-led approach is more favored elsewhere. The work style of each of your employees is likely to be rooted in their culture. 

Begin by writing down all the cross-cultural factors that are hindering your team from reaching their full potential–you could even ask your employees for feedback and ideas. Then research training programs that can help them overcome those specific constraints.

For example, if your company’s global executives deal with foreign subsidiaries, then implementing corporate language training could help them communicate more effectively and express themselves more clearly in that target language. This will inevitably improve the relationship between leaders and their international employees.

Training programs are more than just work perks. You can use them to empower your organization’s employees and successfully manage a culturally diverse team.

7) Promote two-way communication

Language isn’t the only barrier to effective cross-cultural management. Other challenges include working with employees who feel overwhelmed, unmotivated, or disengaged for a variety of cultural, emotional, or psychological reasons. But by facilitating two-way communication, managers can nurture meaningful employee relationships within diverse teams.

First and foremost, you must create opportunities for your workers’ opinions and ideas to be heard. Choose a digital communication channel that allows for quick feedback exchange, such as Slack. Also, suggestion boxes, whether on paper or online, are a good idea for anonymous submissions.

When promoting two-way communication, encourage your team to be more open and see to it that they have access to the right tools to speak their minds. By doing so, you can encourage both parties to listen and learn from one another.

8) Create safe spaces at work

All employees, regardless of their background, should feel a sense of belonging in your company as soon as they sign a contract. Making them feel at home and connected to everyone else in your organization begins with you and the D&I practices you utilize to make that happen. 

Start early in the hiring and onboarding phase. Ask for employees’ personal work expectations and needs. For instance, some workers may desire the support of colleagues from their own social groups, while others are at ease alone.

For a more inclusive approach, you can also provide physical and digital chat spaces where coworkers can connect with one another as a group or privately. This helps introduce new employees to experienced ones without overwhelming either.

Providing safe spaces at work allows your team to converse and interact, which inspires empathy and motivates them to do their best work for their team.

9) Invest in team-building activities

Cross-cultural management can also extend to team-building activities, such as classic ice breaker games. These exercises can be used to prompt fun, casual interactions that have the ability to improve your team’s engagement and collaboration at work.

Depending on your budget, the activities can be virtual, indoor, or outdoor. You can also tailor them to suit the circumstances and needs of your staff. For example, if you’re relocating some of your employees from the U.K. to Japan, you could engage the new British/Japanese team in both Western- and Eastern-inspired team-building activities that introduce them to each other’s cultures and encourage them to connect through shared experiences. This could be a baking project inspired by The Great British Bake-Off or a mountaineering trip to one of Japan’s famous summits. 

Whatever you choose, it should help them relate to one another and build deeper relationships.

10) Involve employees in the process

Strong cross-cultural relationships don’t happen overnight. They required a lot of work, experimentation, and examination. So don’t do it alone! Involve your employees in the process of fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace.

For instance, consult supervisors, managers, and team heads to guide your cross-cultural management plans. What cultural barriers are reducing their teams’ efficiency? Are there any cultural challenges they want to address or disputes they need to resolve? 

You can also reach out to employees directly. Ask them to express their concerns about D&I efforts in the workplace and offer suggestions for improving their cross-cultural relationships at work.

By doing this, you will have a customized approach to cross-cultural management that speaks to your team’s specific needs and work situation.

Break down cultural barriers with language training

Effectively implementing cross-cultural management requires making a commitment to building an inclusive environment to encourage meaningful relationships among employees. In addition, the more diverse the team grows and the more varied their needs become, your approach to D&I must shift with it.

Despite these challenges, using the principles and practices of cross-cultural management provides an opportunity for you to gain a competitive edge in today’s globalized economy while also enhancing employee retention, motivation, and satisfaction at work.

With Preply, you can overcome cross-cultural differences through our personalized corporate language training program. Our team of expert tutors can help your employees learn new languages and embrace new cultures. If you’re ready to take your commitment to D&I to the next level, book your demo here.