- 24 Jul, 2024
- 0 Comments
- 3 Mins Read
Culturally Diverse Workplaces
Because I’ve been working in a number of organisations recently that is a culturally diverse workplace, I see how issues around communication that start as small, can blow up to large. It can lead to the process to end the job, sick or stress leave, time taken off work, poor productivity, unhappiness in the workplace.
Juggling an organisation that has employees of different gender (if they identify as a gender), generation, and ethnicity, not to forget personalities, and all the other things that make us up as people can be really challenging. For a ‘culture of acceptance’ to run through an organisation it needs to start at the top.
Policies (in line with current regulations to begin with) through to an excellent induction, regular appraisals, to systems that ensure a diverse business can be managed exceptionally well, understanding your people should be mandatory.
The more we learn about ourselves and how we like to be related to, the easier it is to relate to others. This can reduce the amount of miscommunication in a workplace, which then, in turn, decreases time lost in repetition and reduces stress.
If you think of yourself as a jigsaw puzzle. Just a simple one, only a few pieces. They might be big, they might be little. Once made up you can see a picture of you. Fun. Here are some suggestions of the pieces – gender, age, ethnicity, values, learning style, personality type, communication style, and strengths. Plus, IQ and EQ.
You will find a multitude of tests online to discover who you are. You may have already done some but have you passed this information on to your boss or colleagues? Even though the ‘learning styles’ theory has been generally debunked, I still find it useful as a tool when preparing programmes because I can direct the person to the best method of training to learn quicker and make sure what they have learned stays embedded to become practice.
As an auditory learner, I find noise challenging when I’m trying to focus. Loud voices talking on the phone, people’s ring/text tones, certain music, is all very distracting and either one of two things will happen. 1. I’ll get really frustrated and have to find a quiet place to work and if it’s an open plan space with no quiet rooms I have to go home (to work!!) or 2. Distract others.
Do you know your learning style? How do you learn best? This can go a long way to discovering your best working environment, how you like to receive information, your colleagues and how to present information to them. Knowing this information can increase productivity due to less misinterpretation of instructions and poor performance because conditions are helpful to that particular learning style. (Poor performance could also be a wrong skill set, wrong job, so check out a strengths-based test for that.)
We all learn differently, we are all made up of different ‘stuff’ but we’re all people. The oft-quoted ‘Golden Rule’ is the principle of treating others as you want to be treated stands true in every sense and situation.
In the past I’ve delivered workshops in many organisations and companies on the topic ‘culturally diverse workplaces’ but all pieces of the jigsaw were used to create the big picture of how to communicate openly and honestly within the workplace no matter who we are or where we come from.
Because time is limited all my courses are now online including the training manuals and books. These have been available on Amazon but am sticking to one platform, my website.
The beauty of these books and courses is you can complete them at your own pace and at your own place. It’s very simple to follow along, you just need to dedicate a few minutes a day to practise.
Check out the Say It Clearly online courses for a DIY (click on the button below).
The Amazon link is below too.
Have a great week everyone, Miriam.