What are some methods for enhancing your own cultural awareness?

Racially Diverse Teams Outperform Non-diverse Teams by 35%. 57% of Employees Think Their Companies Should Be More Diverse. — ClearCompany

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• Cultural awareness training
• Create policies surrounding cultural diversity
• Celebrate diversity and cultures
• Bridge the cultural gap with clear communication skills
• Encourage discussion
• What are some methods for enhancing your cultural awareness?
• What are some examples of cultural awareness?
• What are 3 work practices that can be considered to be culturally appropriate?

Workplaces are radically changing with more multicultural employees joining the workforce. It is a good indication for companies as it is universally accepted that a diverse workforce increases the revenue of a company. Businesses often deal with clients and associates from various parts of the globe; and multiculturalism provides organizations a limitless pool of diverse ideas, viewpoints, and talent.

Though a diverse cultural workplace has benefits, it may also give rise to cultural differences. Thereby, organizations need to take steps to promote cultural awareness in the workplace as well as prevent cultural conflicts so that they can better deal with foreign colleagues and clients. There are multiple ways to train and educate your employees so that they can work effectively with a diverse group of people. Here are some proven tips to promote cultural literacy and awareness in your organization.

Cultural awareness training

Cultural awareness training educates your employees about people who are different from themselves. This helpful course enables your employees to explore many facets of cultural differences across different parts of the world and let them realize that at the intersection of different vibrant and cross-culturalism, there lies the opportunity for absolute synergy. After completion of such a course, your employees will:

· Understand what it takes to be culturally competent

· Gain knowledge of respectful behaviors that promote harmony with others in the organization

· Develop skills to resolve conflicts to get the results in the best interest of all people

Create policies surrounding cultural diversity

Creating workplace guidelines and policies focused on cultural diversity is a critical step to ensure that your workforce is culturally aware. Set rules about acceptable and ethical behavior in the workplace. You can offer clarity on how employees of diverse background should work together. Go through the local laws on discrimination at the workplace and include those regulations in your company’s policies. Make sure that every employee, including front-line and leaders, is aware of what discrimination means.

Celebrate diversity and cultures

Any step you take to celebrate the diversity of your workforce will help increase cultural awareness in the organization. In fact, cultural diversity is an opportunity for your employees to pick up new things about different cultures. Motivate your employees to share stories about their heritage, and expand knowledge from the states they belong. Encourage your workforce to value differences. Take on board the holidays of other cultures to show that you recognize and welcome the diversity. It can be as simple as an email notice in your company’s news bulletin. Food is another great way to promote and celebrate cultural differences. Organize monthly lunches for employees at multi-cuisine restaurants. During religious or cultural festivals, distribute treats from the associated culture among employees.

Bridge the cultural gap with clear communication skills

A large number of misunderstanding and conflicts majorly arise due to poor communication. People from different cultural backgrounds may have different styles of verbal communication and body language. For example, in some cultures, people fold their hands to greet instead of a handshake. Likewise, in some cultures, direct eye contact is considered impolite.

When working with a multi-cultural workforce, let your employees know the communication norms of different cultures. It will help them understand the physical and verbal communication cues which are different from theirs.

Encourage discussion

The earlier you address cultural conflicts at your workplace, the lesser it will affect your employee’s feelings. Encourage your employees to sit together and discuss if they are facing issues. Handle the conflicts through nonbiased eyes and give all employees equal opportunity to voice their concerns. If your employees know that they can raise their concerns without hesitation, cultural issues will be addressed sooner. This step will prevent your employees from suppressing conflicts that can turn into bigger problems.

Cultivating a diverse culture has many benefits. For example, diverse cultural perspectives foster creativity and innovation. Local market knowledge of different cultural groups comes handy to understand competitiveness and profitability in a global market. A better cultural sensitivity, insight, and local knowledge give companies an insight into the target market. A culturally diverse talent allows companies to attract and retain the best pool of talent. And so, every organization should try to implement cultural awareness.

What are some methods for enhancing your cultural awareness?

What are some examples of cultural awareness?

What are 3 work practices that can be considered to be culturally appropriate?