Effective Communication in the Workforce

These days it seems the world is becoming more and more global and it is becoming more and more important to be able to communicate with people from other cultures. Being able to communicate with other team members in a company will benefit the employees as well as management. They will learn what is tolerated and accepted from different team members of those in the different cultures. For instance, Americans and Northern Europeans are more timeline oriented, direct, and results-focused than say, Latin and other minority cultures. These people take a more relationship based approach, according to Grace Kenig, career consultant counselor for laptop website. These people make excellent team members as they help encourage the greater good when it comes to important individual achievement. The most important communication skill when it comes to minorities in a professional relationship is trust. They may take an indirect approach when it comes to problems in the workplace relationships. If they are paired with employees from other cultures who value directness, they may become frustrated. White people in America where management is concerned prefer problems and issues to be brought to them directly. In the Western cultures, time is based on a linear or sequential, or a clock, to base their tasks on. But in other cultures, the clock is not so important when it comes to tasks at work. In America and other Western cultures, rudeness, or walking away from an important meeting, is assumed to be considered unprofessional in the workplace. If we as employees and supervisors understand the differences between cultures of those working on multicultural teams, we can learn to bridge the gap to more effective communication in the workforce. There are several steps employees and management can take when working on multicultural teams. The first is learning how to adjust communication from different cultures, to the different prospective with different backgrounds and experiences. The challenges of choosing a language, like English, can be a problem when it comes to communicating with members who are not fluent in the chosen language and it becomes important to finding ways to prevent problems when communication is stalled and knowing how to identify ways to these cultural misunderstandings and communication failures. Preventing the exchange of ideas with such members make the task exhausting learning how to understand this communication failures. The second is setting norms like learning to adjusting to each team members’ work communication habits. Learning how leaders establish these norms, and knowing when not to use these colloquialisms that are unique to a local region, and avoiding slang in the workplace where meanings may have different meanings to different cultures. These different meanings can make or break a professional relationship, so it is important to know when to use these colloquialisms and when to avoid slang so as not to fracture the professional work relationship and impede the progress of the project or assignment of the team members. The third step is recalibrating norms to adjust any gaps recognized among the different cultures, which non-language fluency brings on stress, and team members using English as a second language may have to work harder at communication and understanding tasks associated with multicultural teams. When team members learn to what is hindering its team members, they are better equipped to cut out the stress of those team members and learn new ways at effective communication that allows each member of the work team to productively make an effort in the project or assignment. Peer-to-peer confidantes allow both management and employees have gain a responsibility to address such issues that arise in multicultural workplace teams. Some cultures are more accustomed to hierarchical communication channels than others who stress less importance on statuses or titles. These team members with a more hierarchical mindset may only talk to their peers rather than to management. Management should such issues when sharing with staff members allows management to understand the team’s needs. When it comes to social capital, employees on multicultural teams should learn to invest time in understanding the work and communication styles of their colleagues and leaders. They should also learn to recognize such frustrations like the perception of gender roles in hierarchical management, and invest time to help team members learn to adjust to new expectations in building the goodwill to better workplace relationships. When it comes to building better professional relationships in the modern day multicultural workplace, it is important to knowing the differences between different cultural for effective communication and learning to adjust to these differences. Learning these steps to more effective communication will make for better professional relationships in the workplace. References Lisa Bigelow, Demand Media. Multicultural Workforce, Teamwork & Communication. http://woman.thenest.com/steps-effective-multicultural-workplace-communication-9891.htm. Retrieved September 4, 2013. Debra Hojberg-Kraft, Demand Media. Steps for Effective Multicultural Workplace Communication. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/multicultural-workforce-teamwork-communication-12523.html . Retrieved September 4, 2013.