Author: Jodi O'Callaghan
As I prepare for my upcoming marriage and wedding ceremony in Delhi in December, I continue to be fascinated by the subtle cultural differences between myself (originally from New Zealand) and my fiancé (originally from India). And this is only between two people. In an organisational setting, the cultural diversity is 100 fold. So how do organisations ensure they are capturing all members of the internal audience when they produce messages going out to such a diverse employee base? What factors must be considered when communicating messages to a culturally diverse organisational audience?
Cultural diversity can range from differences in ethnicity, language, race and nationality through to age, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities and socioeconomic level. For the purposes of this article, I’m referring to race, ethnicity and nationality.
The majority of western countries value individualism – we strive for personal excellence, happiness, pleasure and satisfaction. We are encouraged to have career aspirations from our teens, seek financial success, which supposedly equates to overall success in our lives, enabling us to buy a house and have a lifestyle we find rewarding.
Eastern countries on the contrary tend to value collectivism – individuals are often raised in a wider family setting in a collective group that is wider than their immediate family. While career aspirations are encouraged, often it’s to ensure family will be financially secure and can be cared for, and the family in turn funds the education of the children to ensure the individual creates a better life for themselves and their collective family. While some may argue this is changing with the economic boom in countries like China and India, fundamentally these values remain a strong part of the cultural foundation, albeit on a sliding scale bewteen collectivism and individualism.
Within organisations that are undoubtedly made up of employees from diverse cultures, there is the additional sphere of the organisational culture in which the employees carry out their roles. Values are at the core of these cultures – both societal cultures and organisational cultures.
For the sake of understanding what different categories there are when it comes to organisational cultures, I’ll refer here to Hofstede’s renowned 2001 study of more than 80,000 IBM employees in 40 countries. Hofstede identified four dimensions that he labelled individualism vs. collectivism (how much members of the organisation define themselves apart from others), masculinity vs. femininity (the value placed on traditionally male or female values), small vs. large power-distance (how comfortable members of the organisation are with the various distribution of power) and weak vs. strong uncertainty avoidance (how anxious members of the organisation are with the unknown, and consequently how they cope with that). Usually, organisations are a blend of all of these dimensions.
Often the relationship between societal values such as individualism and collectivism are linked closely with societal norms, but what about when western (individualistic) companies are operating in eastern (collectivistic) countries? What does this mean for an ever-shrinking global workforce, and the professional communicators writing the messages to be communicated?
First and foremost, it is ideal that communicators understand their internal audience is likely to be culturally diverse with values embedded at a fundamental level and respect the differences. Second, organisations should in the least have a basic understanding of the culture and country in which they are doing business, and once again respect those differences, working within the culturally acceptable parameters of the country/ culture.
For communicators, it is important to keep in mind, employees won’t necessarily be seeing things through the communicator’s worldview; they will interpret the message through their own worldview – a worldview comprising their cultural identity, values and essentially the total sum of all their experiences.
As the world moves in to a phase in which consumers are demanding more transparent business processes (think environmental sustainability and triple bottom line), communicators need to ensure communication strategy - as part of the organisations business strategy - maximises the value of a culturally diverse workforce, and reflects those values when working in countries and cultures different to its own.
Organisations that operate at a global scale should go beyond demographics and statistics. For professional communicators this means carrying out in-depth qualitative research on your internal audience and using that information in the strategic planning and execution of organisational communications. At the executive level, it means ensuring an understanding from the top down that cultural diversity is an organisational value, using opportunities and communications tools to share the stories of all employees from all backgrounds so that diversity is not only tolerated, but nurtured and used as an educational tool.
For companies that measure their triple bottom line, there will undoubtedly be an inextricable link between employee engagement, productivity and how the organisation performs, with how the organisation views, values and communicates the aspects of social capital (relationships) and cultural capital (education and knowledge) of a culturally diverse organisation. Ultimately, this makes for a healthy, functional and productive organisation. And one in which the professional communicator is likely to be valued in helping the organisation reach its business goals and objectives!
