Article Index: Career Coach | Life at Work | WorkWise
Saturday, September 19, 2009
The Diversity Factor
Do you 'play well' with others? The ability to bridge cultural divides may be an important line on the résumé of the future.
Recent surveys of employers consistently show that what they look for in job candidates - and seldom find - are strong communication skills. As the work force increasingly diversifies and organizations become global in scale, employers are setting the bar higher, favoring candidates who can communicate sensitively and efficiently across cultural divides.
Multicultural awareness is a "critical success factor" in today's job market, says B. K. Simerson of Tradewinds Consulting, a St. Charles, Ill.-based firm that helps organizations develop leaders and cope with change.
"We are now a global workforce. If you are entering an organization, unless it's extremely small, you're going to be interacting with individuals from different cultural backgrounds," he says. These differences occur among co-workers and clients and in supply chains and distribution channels, he adds.
Understanding cultural differences and being able to communicate with people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities and backgrounds is so crucial to the success of organizations that it won't be long before such will be the norm among job applicants and an expectation among employers, says Kristina Leonardi, adjunct instructor, NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies, New York.
But we're not quite there yet, and meanwhile, "Organizations have a need for people with the skills to be intermediaries," says Mary Meares, assistant professor of communication studies, University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa.
They need folks who understand, for example, why Islamic women might not shake hands and that Chinese people's nods signify attention but not necessarily agreement. Those who possess intercultural awareness and aptitudes - especially fluency in another language and experience working abroad - have a competitive edge in today's job market and should highlight those qualifications on their resumes, says Roberta Chinsky Matuson, president, Human Resource Solutions, Northampton, Mass.
Not everyone believes that companies' global aspirations will spur demand for employees with multicultural skills. Some point to the growth in U.S. firms outsourcing business overseas. Others, including some prominent U.S. economists, see "reverse globalization" taking place. "In my experience, during times of economic turmoil and high unemployment, countries become more protectionist," says business consultant Lisa Anderson, LMA Consulting Group, Claremont, Calif. "There has already been a reversal trend of globalization since the recession started."
Even so, businesses will eventually consider returning part or all of their operations overseas, Anderson says, and it will be important to have employees in place "who understand the multicultural implications to ensure a comprehensive strategy and successful transition."
In addition, "Even in the United States, the diversity of our own population is making new demands on businesses of all types," says Los Angeles workplace consultant B. J. Gallagher. "For example, the population in Los Angeles is approaching 50 percent Hispanic. That has huge implications for companies and how they market their products and services. Being bilingual is a huge advantage if you want to work in Southern California."
The fields of health care, government, education and business all put workers in contact with people with different backgrounds, skin colors and nationalities. "It is important to get people to understand those differences to improve communication," says Raghav Singh, senior partner, The A-List staffing services, Minneapolis. He says the emphasis should be on intercultural skills and diversity-mindedness as opposed to workplace diversity programs that focus on improving the ratios of gender and race among applicants and hires. That's like trying to find all the "right" colors to fill a crayon box instead of actually creating a picture. To produce something of worth, it's necessary to "play well" with others, which involves an understanding of where they're coming from. But merely having an impressive array of colors doesn't ensure cooperation, let alone successful outcomes, Singh would argue. Diversity programs and politics aside, intercultural awareness is a sought-after skill that a person can acquire by traveling, through volunteer work and by partnering with diverse teammates for school or work projects.
A global economy is also a "24-7 economy," Singh says, and those who land jobs and excel at them will be as flexible as they are diversity-minded. "So, it's Memorial Day in the United States - it's not a holiday anywhere else," he says. "If you have to take a call at 2 in the morning because it's business hours overseas, you have to be willing to do these things for professional jobs."
Copyright © CTW Features
