How a Mulicutural workforce can affect a Company
...ommunication inaccuracies stemming from stress create an atmosphere of mistrust. As a result, the team begins to experience a number of social stresses including bickering, apathy, single party domination of discussions, stubbornness, and reprimanding. Conclusively, team functioning becomes more difficult and less efficient. There are many tools in the marketplace that will assist a company in getting past language barriers. One of the essential tools is corporate training programs. Such programs should start during the recruitment process and be implemented the management levels. Cultural management used to be a minor component of industrial activity, but today it dominates. Company’s big and small must understand cultural dynamics in order to make important decisions such as cross cultural interaction throughout the organization. The cross-cultural training should facilitate the process of acculturation, the process of conditioning a person to the patterns or customs of a culture, and help develop the skills needed to socialize with a person of a foreign culture. This type of training, when implemented prior to cultural contact, will help team members effectively modify behavioral responses. These behavioral responses are the basis for intercultural effectiveness, and thus enhance psychological adjustment (Norhayati Zakaria, 2000). Chen and Starosta (1996) believed that people have to develop their intercultural communication competence in order to live meaningful and productive lives in the global village. In addition, according to Landis and Brislin (1983), as the workforce in various countries becomes more culturally diverse, it is necessary to train people to become more competent and thus to deal effectively with the complexities of new and different environments. Companies must develop such competence in order to be successful. Some of the basic communication barriers between cultural teammates can be addressed right away and be very helpful. For example, when communication becomes a factor in team meetings, companies should hire an interpreter. This helpful tool alone can assist in deterring common language misunderstandings. Companies can even use interpreters for conference calling. In addition, with the world depending on computers more than ever, upgrading computer software for using the auto translator is a definite plus for the communication of emails between its’ team members. The before discussed tools, when used by companies, will enhance production and increase communication between team members. An analysis done by the school of international relations says, “Cultural diversity can have a positive and negative impact on teams”(Nancy Alder, 2002). The impact on team members in the beginning will result in loss of productivity, with teams spending more time and effort in creating cohesion. Once cohesion is established, the team begins to be more productive than before. A multi...