Addressing Cultural Diversity
Career Innovation, an organization that helps employers “increase business agility and gain recognition as inspiring places to work,” conducted an extensive study on the preparedness of organizations to address the increasing cultural disparity their employees experience at the workplace and how culture affects communication.
45 organizations were interviewed late last year and 91% said they expect internal cultural heterogeneity to expand, if not explode in size, in the coming years. Other primary cultural aspects that most affect the participants include communication styles (e.g. direct or indirect), language and accent barriers and the establishment of trust. How many people and organizations acknowledge culture? How many acknowledge culture and try to understand it by taking another step and addressing it in a systematic, thoughtful way?
