Background
Modern workplaces are an environment where people from diverse cultural backgrounds work together to achieve shared goals. Thus, it becomes essential to facilitate communication among employees and make it inclusive, allowing everyone to be heard, valued, and respected in the workplace. This report aims to provide a cross-cultural communication strategy that enables all employees to cooperate and reach consensus successfully despite their cultural differences. The proposed cross-cultural communication strategy is based on four key elements: developing relationships, fostering empathy, respecting others, and providing training and education.
Plan Components
Strategy Communication
First, it is important to describe the strategy in detail and present all of its key components. Relationships among employees are an element that leadership cannot ignore, especially in a cross-cultural environment. People tend to communicate with individuals who share their culture (Nguyen-Phuong-Mai, 2019). As a result, on many occasions, multicultural workplaces have many separate groups of employees who communicate based on their cultural differences.
To avoid such a situation, companies should ensure that all employees interact with one another and build solid relationships that transcend their cultural groups. Leaders must play the main role in the process of intercultural communication among employees. For instance, they can hold team-building events after working hours, where all employees will work in multicultural teams and engage in communication to achieve goals.
Empathy
The second element of the proposed strategy is ensuring that all employees practice empathy when interacting with others. People from various cultures may find it challenging to communicate with one another due to their differing worldviews (Nguyen-Phuong-Mai, 2019). Therefore, it is essential that they can see another person’s perspective, and empathy plays a crucial role in this regard. To promote empathy, employees must engage in active listening and resolve issues as they arise during communication.
Respect
The factor of respect is another essential element of the cross-cultural communication strategy proposed in the current report. While empathy enables people to see another person’s perspective, respect allows them to recognize its validity (Browaeys & Price, 2019). Inclusion should be based on the equality of all people, and to achieve this, they must respect one another. Respect is a component that enhances organizational effectiveness and employees’ job satisfaction (Geue, 2018). The company must establish clear etiquette rules for workplace politeness and kindness to maintain respect and outline possible penalties for unethical behavior.
Training
Finally, extensive training is a key component of the strategy that must encompass all the previously mentioned elements. Essentially, the company’s management must design and implement special training sessions to teach employees about cultural differences and various communication styles. Inclusivity training fosters employee relationships and enhances their sense of commitment to one another (O’Donovan, 2018). During inclusive communication training, employees can be provided with effective communication strategies and best practices for a multicultural workplace environment.
Strategy Analysis
The strategy, as mentioned above, has both benefits and drawbacks that will need to be addressed. The benefits of the strategy include the inclusion of all employees in the program, which can foster a sense of belonging among them and encourage them to interact more with colleagues. Additionally, the strategy is beneficial because it contributes to the establishment of a workplace where every employee has a voice and is valued. The drawback of the strategy is the lack of attention to the possible language barriers among employees.
The strategy will consider the workforce’s cross-cultural nature by recognizing the value of every employee and allowing them to share their perspectives openly. In the case of remote communication, the strategy will remain relevant, as training sessions and relationship-building activities can still be conducted using the Internet. The barriers to remote communication when implementing the strategy include language and time-zone differences.
The strategy will support the goals of inclusion and belonging by ensuring that all employees feel valued and respected. The briefing strategy will encompass the cultural variety of team members and ensure everyone has a voice by establishing etiquette rules and teaching employees to listen to one another. The strategy is suitable and appropriate since it can be applied in any setting and requires no extra preparations.
Strategy Implementation
The strategy will be implemented in two stages, involving the stimulation of cross-cultural interactions and the provision of training. During the first stage, employees will be offered various team-building activities, where they will form multicultural groups and be asked to complete tasks together. During the second stage, employees will receive training sessions that teach them to practice empathy, engage in active listening, and follow the company’s etiquette rules, promoting respect and inclusion. The drawback of language differences can be overcome with the help of interpreters or simplified conversations.
Reference List
Browaeys, M. and Price, R. (2019) Understanding cross-cultural management. 4th edn. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education.
Geue, P. (2018) ‘Positive practices in the workplace: impact on team climate, work engagement, and task performance’, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 54(3), pp. 272–301.
Nguyen-Phuong-Mai, M. (2019) Cross-cultural management: with insights from brain science. 1st edn. London: Routledge.
O’Donovan, D. (2018) ‘Sex and gender: beyond the binaries’, in Machado, C. and Davim, J.P. (ed.) Organizational behaviour and human resource management: A guide to a specialized MBA course. London: Springer, pp. 73–108.