Introduction
Cultural diversity in an organization refers to the representation of a team from different backgrounds such as race, religion, political and sexual orientation. These people are organized to work in a seamless and synchronized manner for the growth and success of their respective organizations. Every team member has a critical role to play, irrespective of their different cultural backgrounds and beliefs. However, an effective executive team must be in place to set up and supervise a conducive working environment accommodating workers from different cultural backgrounds. These leaders are tasked with managing cultural diversity within the organization through hiring staff, creating favorable inclusive policies, providing diversity training, settling disputes, and embracing religious diversity.
Discussion
The role of setting staff hiring requirements is vested in the hands of the organization’s executive leadership. They are required to identify gaps and the relevant qualifications of people needed to occupy these positions and perform the arising tasks. Furthermore, most of the people these organizations serve come from different backgrounds and are compelled to have an image of diversity in their staff. Therefore, the leadership must develop hiring guidelines that appreciate and embrace different cultures. This ensures the skills and talents of the minority and marginalized groups in the society, based on culture, are tapped and utilized for the organization’s benefit. Cultural diversity in organizations increases their potential for acceptability and dominance in society since every community feels they are part of it (Feyes, n.d.). Their products and services are perceived to respect the values of different communities. The leadership should provide favorable hiring procedures and requirements that ensure all participants meet the thresholds regardless of their cultural background and beliefs.
The organization’s leadership has the responsibility of formulating cultural diversity-friendly policies. This ensures every team member is recognized and subjected to equal treatment like others irrespective of culture, race, religion, and even sexual orientation. While coming up with these policies, the stakeholders must consider the cultural impact they will have on their current staff and the influence on the subsequent hiring. It is important to ensure they do not favor or discriminate against any group of people, regardless of their positions in the organization (Mateescu, 2018). For instance, the UN, which serves the entire globe, has a team of people drawn from different cultural backgrounds whose roles are synchronized to steer the organization toward achieving its objectives. As a result of favorable policies, these people are subjected to equal treatment despite their different way of life. The UN leadership, while formulating policies, ensures that it has no negative impact on any individual or group of people; they are favorable and inclusive.
The management is tasked with the provision of cultural diversity training. This enables employees to understand, respect, and embrace each other’s culture despite their differences. The organization has to ensure all everyone is treated equally and with dignity without favoritism on any grounds. This motivates employees to work as a team toward achieving a common objective; the organization’s success. Training provides a platform to understand other people’s cultures and how to live and work with them in harmony, thus reducing the chances of conflicts arising. It also enables all cultures to be equal and should be respected even if it is of a minority group in society. This training also empowers workers to communicate effectively amongst themselves and with people outside the organization. They will be careful with their choice of words not to offend their colleagues with different cultural beliefs or religions (Feyes, n.d.). This training is equally crucial when attending to clients who use the organization’s products or services.
The leadership of any organization plays the role of settling disputes arising from its staff or clients. The management has to amicably resolve the conflict before it escalates and causes further damage. The root cause of some of these misunderstandings is cultural differences; an action or utterance from one culture can be provocative or undermine the other, thus the need to address them on time. Since the conflict may end up paralyzing most, if not the entire, operations of the organization, the management has to intervene and formulate a binding solution to ensure nothing similar will ever happen again. While resolving the issue, they ought to ensure that the conflicting parties are contented with solutions with no feeling of favoritism or discrimination (Sahyaja & Rao, 2017). Organizations with competent leadership rarely experience cultural conflicts since they have guidelines and effective mechanisms for solving them as soon as they arise, thus ensuring no services or operations are paralyzed.
Since workers are entitled to leave, the organization’s leadership has the authority to determine the procedure and consideration for approval. The management would grant leave to employees based on their religious calendar to show recognition and respect for different religions. For instance, Muslims would be allowed to proceed for leave during Ramadhan and Christians during Christmas. This will not only be an honor to religion but a motivation to workers since they feel appreciated and have the sense of being part of the respective organization they are serving. The organization’s leadership must be at the forefront in embracing different cultures and religions without preferring one over another; no religion is justifiably better than another. In addition, when opportunities for promotion and transfer arise, selection should be conducted based on merit, not religion. This will raise confidence and commitment amongst the staff members since there would be no complaints about favoritism or unfair treatment. Every interested and qualifying candidate has the opportunity to express themselves, and the best is chosen. By embracing culture and religion, the management motivates its workers to offer their best since they are at liberty to practice, without restriction, what they believe.
Conclusion
In conclusion, organizational leadership has a role in developing guidelines that embrace cultural diversity for hiring new employees. It formulates diversity-friendly policies that do not harm any cultural beliefs or religion of its staff the current staff and those who will be joining the organization in the future date. The management is mandated to carry out staff training on its employees to encourage them to interact, appreciate, and embrace other cultures and religions. The leadership has an additional role in settling diversity-related disputes from within and outside the organization by addressing the concerns of the conflicting parties and coming up with a binding solution for the moment and the future. It also acknowledges and embraces its workers’ religion by granting them relief during the important days of their religious calendar. This acknowledgment motivates them to have a sense of being part of the organization, thus giving it their best.
References
Feyes, E. (n.d.). Leadership and the promotion of diversity in the work force and beyond. Web.
Mateescu, V. M. (2018). Cultural diversity in the workplace – Discourse and perspectives. On-Line Journal Modelling the New Europe, 23–35.
Sahyaja, C. & Rao, Dr. (2017). Role of leadership in cultural diversity management -With Reference to it Sector in South India. Journal of Advanced Research in Dynamical and Control Systems. 9. 421-431. Web.