Working hand in hand

What's Important when working cross culturally?
When moving to an HR role in India, an Australian client told me he was confronted by many more ethical issues than in Australia. These ethical issues had a cultural base. For example, senior expatriate American nationals at the Indian subsidiary broke company rules by taking their camera equipped mobile phones into secure production areas. Indians never broke these rules. The Indian security guard felt the rules weren't applied equally and he accused the company of racism. In response the HR executive suggested the security guard request senior executive s hand in their phones on entry; a solution which would work in Australia but not India. In a hierarchical society like India it is unlikely that a junior employee would give instructions to someone senior. Nor would they suggest a more appropriate solution to the HR executive. 

What can we learn from this interaction?

1. Assumptions are dangerous. In this case assuming that the solution used in Australia would work in India failed to take account of cultural differences.
2. Understand the culture. Learn about cross cultural values and behaviours. In this case understanding Indian's hierarchical nature and their deference to those more senior.
3. Communication styles vary across cultures. The security guard nodding may only be acknowledgement not necessarily agreement.
4. Develop cultural competencies. Professional expertise is not the only driver of global business success.

A more culturally sensitive  solution: have a senior staff member speak to the American executives about this breach of security and ask them to comply.

Further information: Anna Koren anna@interculture.com.au 0409 043 496

 Australia's ageing population and, therefore, its ageing workforce, is a given. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics as at June 2009, the number of Australians of workforce age (15-64) was 17.5 million or 65.3% of our population. Our fertility rates will remain low, and projections are that for some time after 2010 there will be more people leaving the workforce than joining it. The traditional recruitment pool is like our water supply, increasingly valuable and precious. Furthermore, the 2002 Intergenerational Report paints a challenging period over the next 20 years projecting that the number of people aged between 55 and 64 will increase by more than 50%. The bell curve of our workforce demographic shows a huge wave moving inexorably toward retirement.

Attraction, engagement and retention continue to be the most critical success factors in HR strategy for Australian organisations. Indeed, this very issue of an ageing workforce is affecting many international economies and thereby increasing global movement of skilled and unskilled labour. It is precisely this reality that is driving policy at federal, state and local government levels and precisely why a long-term immigration strategy is important. The Federal Government is talking already about developing such a strategy based on integration and growth.

We should not be afraid of increased immigration. Indeed, our experience has been growth through immigration; from the end of World War II our population grew from around 13 million to 22 million on the back of immigration. As we know from experience, increased migration will bring increased diversity to our community and organisations, and with it a complexity that may be seen by organsations as a cost driver. 

The impact on business
Consequently, unique pressures are looming. Integrating migrants and supporting their families who migrate with them will be critical to the success of any immigration program and the recruitment and retention of migrant employees. Organisations will need to strategically prepare their workplaces for an influx of migrant labour and its impact, not least through developing diversity programs. In this context, those that aim to integrate migrant employees rather than to assimilate them (that is, requiring them to be like us, whatever that is) will have better traction.

Reflecting on a decade of implementing diversity programs we can evaluate and benchmark diversity activities, identify best practices, and debate quality criteria and standards in order to establish a more effective business case for diversity.

Studies such as Hewitt Associates' Beyond Best Practice: New Strategies for Diversity Breakthroughs (2006) highlight positive achievements. However, when assessing current best practices in managing diversity, the study concludes that "few organizations are directly applying the implications of diversity to their business strategies." This is crucial because without that connection diversity becomes simply an 'HR thing' and positive change is limited. An integrated business strategy for a diversity breakthrough is now more important than ever.

The Hewitt study makes it clear that before embarking on diversity programs corporations need to answer the vital question of why it is important given their industry and company profile.  "Only those able to make hard-wired links to their core business will be able to make those investments necessary to set the foundation for achieving sustainable diversity and inclusion," according to the study. 

Such an approach is necessary in order to de-escalate many of the contentious issues around diversity. Employees need to see the relevance. This is critical to creating an inclusive environment. It shifts diversity from being about various constituencies - for example, migrants - to being about the organisation. CEOs, managers and employees need to lead and believe that diversity is indeed critical to business success. 

Diversity strategies that work
So how do we make diversity programs work? Programs that encourage people to simply get along and that voice the need for inclusion and political correctness are not enough to bring inclusion about. Inclusion is tough and harder than raising awareness or sensitising staff for diversity because it is about making sure that individuals from various demographic groups feel included in their immediate surroundings AND in the organisations' overall community. Inclusion is about how to make the diversity mix work.

Organisational and business structures and processes need to be implemented to support diversity and inclusion. Individual learning needs to be matched by and supported by structural changes at all levels. Change processes need to occur at all levels so that individuals - diversity competent staff or migrants - aren't  burdened, frustrated, defeated or, in the worst case, blamed as solely responsible for tensions and conflicts that inevitably occur. Taylor Cox (2008) emphasised the need to relate workforce diversity to organisational issues such as organisational culture and managing change through organisational development (OD).

The Hewitt study argued that the paradigm of diversity sensitivity and tolerance, which were part of the past generation of work diversity, was limited in delivering a sustainable inclusive workplace environment. This was because although the tolerance approach resulted in enforced zero tolerance policies based on anti-discrimination legislation and affirmative action strategies, it undermined inclusion because of its implied audiences specifically targeting groups of people based on one attribute such as white, black, gay, lesbian, women, disability or ethnicity. But individual identities crosscut various group categories, and individuals can feel stigmatised once they are categorised according to one characteristic or another. 

Such oversimplified group categorisations immediately put members of an organisation or community on the defensive and create antagonism. For example, migrant minorities against the majority population groups, Muslims against Christians, and so on.

New diversity strategies are needed to take us toward authentic outcomes of inclusion. There needs to be a paradigm shift in individual and organisational diversity competence and, more specifically, cultural competence, one of the most important core competencies of the future. In sum, cultural competence refers to an ability to interact and communicate effectively with people of different cultures. It is the ability to solve culturally determined problems by recognising one's own model of reality or world view and perspectives in relation to that of others. It is the ability to proactively value and utilise cultural diversity as a resource and as a precondition for solving conflicts and problems. By employing it decisions are taken and conflicts resolved in ways that optimise cultural differences and similarities in regard to better, longer lasting (sustainable) and more creative outcomes. 

Managing diverse work teams
Successfully managing a diverse workforce is challenging and complex. It goes beyond sensitivity and intercultural training or promoting specific previously disadvantaged groups. A diverse workforce means more diverse desires, employee needs, value systems and beliefs, work and communication styles, and individual cultural behaviours which all pose challenges to HR management and organisational leadership.

In their 2000 research into creating value with diverse work teams, Joseph DiStefano and Martha Maznevski concluded that given a demonstrated commitment to diversity and inclusion and management competence diverse teams will outperform homogenous teams through the synergy created. According to DiStefano and Maznevski, there are three types of multicultural teams, and this still applies.

• The Destroyers are characterised by mistrust and prejudices. Team energy is diverted to conflicts around processes of negative stereotyping. These teams are dysfunctional because the formal leaders make decisions without genuine discussion among members. Results lag behind those of homogenous teams.
• The Equalizers ignore and override cultural differences. Teams do not move beyond mediocrity since potentials of diverse ideas, perspectives and values are not utilised. Cultural diversity is not viewed as having resource and innovative potential.
• The Creators recognise and value cultural diversity, and even promote it in regard to set objectives. DiStefano and Maznevski compare such teams with a top-performing jazz ensemble. 
  DiStefano and Maznevski argued that top performance through synergy of individual differences cannot be taken for granted but is a process accompanied by HR development interventions based on their MBI-Model of managing cultural diversity. The MBI-Model consists of three phases.

In the Mapping phase the team is made aware of relevant differences. It includes various aspects such as cultural origin, gender, education, work experience and other issues, which may cause conflicts. The aim is to equip the team to reflect on one's own cultural identity, i.e. being aware of and gaining an understanding for differences.

In the Bridging phase competencies are acquired in recognising and dealing with problems adequately and preventatively.

In the Integration phase strategies are in place to manage differences, ie, to value and utilise differences to achieve high performance. It includes monitoring participation patterns, solving disagreements and creating new perspectives.

Given all of the above we will have true or authentic diversity at work and know that is working for us when the following outcomes are visible:

• Rigid and unproductive work related structures and organisational cultures are overcome by replacing a dominant or monoculture with cultural diversity throughout all levels and sectors resulting in a multicultural organisation in which differences and similarities are valued and managed.
• Costs to counter discriminatory practices are reduced, and employee motivation and productivity is increased through the avoidance of discriminatory practices. 
• The potentials of all employees are recognised and activated creating a larger pool of qualified staff.
• Employees are more satisfied and more highly motivated making the organisation an  employer of choice.
• The quality of services and products is improved, for example, through cultural specific adaptation of products and targeting specific groups of people. Successful examples are Deutsche Bank's targeting of the Turkish community and guy marketing for various consumer products (Stuber 2002).
• The image of the organisation and society in general is improved. 

About the author
Stuart King is the CEO of KWS Workplace Solutions and former senior police manager of the Victoria Police Equity and Diversity Unit. Visit www.kingsworkplacesolutions.com 

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