Managing a wide range of cultural diversity in the workplace is Essay

Managing a wide range of cultural diversity in the workplace is challenging but not impossible - Essay Example Cultural diversity in work place is difficult to handle, but is manageable. This essay will address the main hurdles in effective management under culturally diverse circumstances and solutions to such problems. Cultural diversity refers to multiculturalism or interaction of individuals from different cultures at one platform. This phenomenon occurs as a result of international migration. People from several diverse cultures and nations migrate to other places usually developed areas for work. This makes management difficult. According to UNESCO (2003) some 175 million people live away from their birth places and this rate was reported to be 200 million by the World Bank in 2009. When individuals from various diverse cultures accumulate in a single organization, the management is faced by following common issues: Where there is cultural diversity, people from different races are provided with several opportunities to interact. An interaction at such a level is sometimes ridden with racial issues that are again quite challenging to manage. In culturally diverse workplaces, sometimes individuals from a contrasting culture fail to absorb or even understand the organizational culture. This is referred to as a cultural shock. Cultural shock leads to negative feelings of helplessness and isolation, usually leading to poor performance at work by the individual. Communication barriers among the co workers due to their diverse cultures also pose a problem in such scenarios and if left un dealt with, can pose serious limitations in the organization’s overall performance. The main issues relating to cultural diversity that might pose a problem for management have been highlighted above. These issues suggest that management of cultural diversity is a difficult task. Now I will discuss how these issues can be dealt with making it possible to manage such a culturally diverse workplace. Cultural diversity can be managed at workplace if certain