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Employees’ diversity inhibits effective communication in organisations
Topic- Employees’ diversity inhibits effective communication in organisations
Introduction
The business is turning global which demands the global workforce. Effective communication acts as the greatest tool that helps in assembling the diverse workforce towards a common cause. From an annual address to the daily email letter, every communication taking place in a company has to be complete to make it effective. Addressing the diversified workforce that is a mosaic of different races, ethnic groups, lifestyles, religions, genders, and ages is a challenge for any leader aiming success in the global market (Green et al., 2015). Today’s workforce is not limited to the boundaries of a particular workplace, but sitting in all corners of the world and connected with the help of technology and effective communication. If the leader successfully communicates with them then the same employee diversity increases the competitive advantage of the company or else leads to misconceptions, differences and depressing working environment. The essay argues the challenges and management of achieving effective communication in an organization with workforce diversity (Jiang and Men, 2016).
Diversity Inhibits in Achieving Effective Communication
A successful leader is the one who understands the employees’ diversity and take measures to achieve effective communication. Communication is an important tool for a company that helps in making the human capital of the company understand what is expected from them and how it could be achieved. The communication becomes effective when the meaning of the message sent by the sender is received with the same meaning and understood by the receiver of the message. The diversified workforce has different beliefs and understanding which can be due to the cultural difference or different language. In many countries a single word or gesture may have varying meanings. Also, the geographical locations of the diversified workforce spread across the globe with time differences and lack of effective communicating environment enhances the potential of mistakes. Being sensitive towards people and their cultural values and traditions are also demanded when communicating which if ignored can be taken as insulting by the other member. With so many limitations and boundations, it becomes a real challenge to communicate the needful with the diversified workforce and achieve the desired organizational goals (Ozgen, Nijkamp and Poot, 2015).
For the success of the company the diversified workforce is very important and on the other hand a stable job is important for employee who is adaptable and ready to work with people of diversified culture, ages, gender, location, traditions, religions, and languages. It is agreed that the changes in the employees’ gender, age, location, tradition, culture or language some misconceptions or difference of opinions can arise while communicating amongst with each other. But, a challenge judges the potential of a successful leader and there is nothing better than dealing with the diversified workforce and bringing on the same page of the book that the company wants them to read and follow. With the development of the organizational level when turning global the working efficiency and experiences of the workforce also increases as they also turn global. The global workforce comes prepared with past experiences that effective communication needs the efforts from both ends (Shaban, 2016). When a receiver receives a message, it is important to provide a feedback that explains the understanding of the message is clear or not. This helps in removing any barriers for achieving the effective communication. If the workforce is not aware of the correct procedure then it is the leader’s duty to make it clear that the message forwarded is loud and clear. Showing a bit of sensitiveness and gaining some knowledge about different cultures and tradition can acts as great help when interacting with the diversified workforce. The potential of the human capital of the global world is so high that achieving effective communication is not very difficult for them and the diversity of people cannot act as a big challenge in achieving so (Su-Won Kim, 2016).
Diversified workforce is the need for today’s globalised working environment, but this workforce is developed and talented enough that it understands the norms of working in the globalised and diversified business environment. The important thing is developing coordination amongst the employees coming from varying culture, languages, gender, ages, upbringing, and locations. If the leader achieves this coordination and develops a communication method that is simpler to understand no diversity can act as a challenge in achieving effective communication (Parrotta, P., Pozzoli, D., & Pytlikova, M. 2014). Another thing that can help in removing all barriers in achieving effective communication is the use of innovative technology that allows people to communicate in the language they are fluent in and the receiver can listen it in the language he wants. Effective use of innovative technology can also be achieved by gathering the knowledge about different cultures to achieve a better understanding amongst the employees. Setting time lines and ground rules will also help in making things clear as numbers do not have any language and rules can be translated as per the person’s understanding. Another thing is to provide training to the employees that incorporates the understanding and practical application of managing diversity of various aspects amongst the employees. Thus, making the communication between the employees with diversity effective and fluent (Akey, B. C. A., Jiang, X., Antwi, H. A., & Torku, E. 2016).
Conclusion
Running an organization is a team effort and to make the group of people a team a leader has to develop effective communication between the members. The increasing globalization is bringing together workforce with great diversity and developing an effective communication amongst the diversified workforce is acting as a challenge for the global leaders. It has been argued that the challenge is to communicate in such a way that the message transferred in received with the same meaning without offending people with diversified culture, genders, location, language, ages, and beliefs. Though, with the development of the organization on the global level the workforce is also turning global and understands the sensitiveness of diversity amongst people working in an organization. With proper use of technology, training, and correct communication methods this challenge can be manged very easily and effective communication could be achieved in the organization. Thus, it is concluded that though taken as a challenge employee diversity can be managed to achieve effective communication in an organization.
References
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Shaban, A. (2016). Managing and Leading a Diverse Workforce: One of the Main Challenges in Management. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, pp.76-84.
Su-Won Kim (2016). The Education & Training and the Utilization of Multi-cultural Workforce. Journalism and Mass Communication, 6(8).
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