Diversity Management and Culture

Discuss about the Case Study of No Name Aircraft’.

In such a competitive world, it is essential for every organization to look over the profits and future scope of the company. The further discussion focuses on the organization ‘No Name Aircraft’; here the discussion will highlight the factors which can affect the organization most.  The concern of the CEO of No Name is genuine as running a company with higher goals of achievement and maintaining its reputation among the competitors is not an easy task. Here, the CEO of the company is worried that a company takeover is imminent and he must work on increasing the returns of the stakeholder on their investment and to retrieve a higher share price. The CEO of the company has to revise the organizational structure and human Resource management, and he must have to work on it to develop the management of the company in a beneficial direction. As per the (Mahadevan & Mayer, 2017), people who work together in an organization needs a defined structure through which they can associate with each other and so coordination of their efforts is possible. A better understanding of line and staff relationships assists in constructing a harmonious line-staff relationship. Human Resources management is a staff function and a line responsibility.

Human Resource management is a method of selecting and recruiting the employees as well as providing accurate training and development to the staff, observing the performance and providing safety in the organization. Moreover, maintaining a better environment so that a good relationship can develop among the employees.  Human resource management deals with the process of managing the employees in the organization and the CEO of the company has to look over it to develop their business and increase their share prices. However, the further discussion will help to understand the different factors that need to enhance into the organization (Tzabbar et al., 2017).     

The diversity of the organization refers to the assortment of differences among the people in the workplace. Diversity not merely includes the process of individuals perceiving themselves, but the way they apprehend others. Such perceptions also influence their cooperation with others (Rees & Smith, 2017). It is important for Human resource professionals to handle the different issues like adaptability, change and communication effectively during an extensive selection of employees so that they can perform efficiently as an organization. The diversity of the organization encircles the ethnic group, race, gender, personality, age, organizational function, background and more.

Primary Dimensions

According to (Valeau & Paillé, 2017), growing globalization need more communication among the people from diverse cultures and beliefs than before. Now people are not working in an insular market instead now they are the part of a worldwide economy. Therefore, it is essential for every organization that the diversity of their management becomes more creative and flexible to change. Apart from this, capitalizing on workplace diversity has become a significant problem for management today. The main factors of efficient people management which can enhance the productivity of the place of working are the Managing and valuing diversity.  In a multinational company, it is an apparent fact that there will be people belonging from different cast and culture (Oh et al., 2017). Not only this but also different perspective and tradition of working is also a factor brings out due to the diversity in the working place.  Even in this case ‘No Name’ is an Australian based company where teams are not working well, and there is a communication breakdown between integrated teams and across teams and management. Line managers in Australia are responsible for communications between Headquarters and the subsidiaries, and so the CEO is consistently receiving emails from China, Singapore and Vietnam seeking clarification on numerous aspects. Now it is very much essential for the CEO to understand the reasons behind the issues and the way of handling it. The management has to understand the subject Diversity Management and Culture with depth. Diversity is a subjective phenomenon and group of working people generate as per their different social identities categorize others as similar or dissimilar (Rice, 2015).

Figure: 1

• Disability
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Race
• Age

• Nationality
• Geographic origin
• Education
• Thinking style
• Family status
• Sexual orientation
• Lifestyle
• Religion
• Economic status
• Language
• Culture
• Political orientation
• Work experience

• Group norms
• Perceptions
• Values
• Beliefs
• Feelings
• Attitudes
• Assumptions

With these dimensions, it has observed that diversity and culture of the organizational possess various aspects which can affect the attitudes and behaviors of the individual in the organization. However, culture is a powerful factor which can influence the person and boost up their morale and performance (Kim et al., 2015).

There are several advantages of cultural diversity which develop the management and performance of the employees in the workplace such as:

Broader service range: – in a multinational organization culture diversity can bring more comprehensive service range such as a diverse group of skilled and experienced staff can deal with the customers on a global basis. Different languages and cultural understanding will help the management to provide services to all kind of clients in a big range.

Secondary Dimensions

Creativity: – people of diverse culture can make interaction with various customers more comfortable.  Flexible view points and diversifies ideas gives a larger pool of ideas and experiences. Through, this pool the organization can meet the business strategy needs and the requirements of consumers more efficiently (Ashikali, & Groeneveld, 2015).

Increased adaptability: – Staff from diverse backgrounds can carry out the talents of individual and experiences in implying the ideas that are formable in adapting to fluctuating markets and customer needs and this will help to provide the variety of solution to all the day to day issues.

Apart from all the advantages of Diversity Management and Culture, there are also some challenges to it faced by the management of organizations. Those are:

Unconscious bias: – It is one of the important factors which bring barriers for organizations in the process of embracing the diverse management and culture. Therefore, as it is an unconscious bias, so it makes everything more challenging to overcome (Lauring, 2013).

Communication: – In culture, diversity communication is another challenge in an organization which is an outcome of fundamental differences in the way of communication and different meanings related to non-verbal signals. It can generate issues among the employees due to the lack of understanding among each other because of the different languages and style of communicating. At ‘No Name’, staffs should have to understand each other, to have effective communication and to value the diversity that exists throughout the organization.

However, with the research, it is also noticed that the above-mentioned each challenge can be overcome if there are more awareness and skill by organizing different training program at all level. By this discussion, the CEO of the No Name can learn the method of handling the issues of cultural diversity factor and the process of implementing this into their organization of every county (Reiche et al., 2016).

Table: 1

In every organization, performance management involves the activities which assure that the whether the aim of the management is continuously achieved or not in an efficient manner. Performance management determines the performance of the organization and employees as well as the performance of providing product and services by the company. (Deresky, 2017) said that this method can implement everywhere while interactions of people such as it can be applied by the managers to meet the goals of the organization to the goals of their employees, by certifying the productivity. With the purpose of framing an empowered and skilled workforce, every organization need do more than audit employee accomplishments. The company must work on the management cycle where judgment is not the sole focus instead of this there should be ongoing support and development system which need to focus. One of the significant aspects of the international human management is managing employee’s performance based on the requirements of the organizations and customer’s preferences. Performance management is concerned with promoting and appealing skilled workforce to make their complete contribution to the concern. Performance management helps to assist the line managers in every matter of the company including the staff department of an organization. However, in this case of No name Aircraft, there are various performance management issues across ‘No Name’. International performance is closely associated with international performance appraisals but these are lacking in ‘No Name’, there is no performance reviews conducted at any of the subsidiaries of the organization. There is no formal performance appraisal process for expatriates, and there is no policy that underpins performance management as well. Practicing Performance appraisal can help the company to improve the performance of their employee’s altogether (Pinho & Prange, 2016). After analysing the entire condition the CEO of the company decide to travel to China, Singapore and Vietnam to resolve the issues in each section of the company and also asked the manager to consider culture and local practices.

Tertiary Dimensions

Table: 2

Management and coaching: – With the purpose of identifying the gaps in employee’s skill Performance appraisals contemplate. Constant feedback and coaching by the management help to improved performances and engagement of each employee. Providing the correct training and development programs to address performance and skill gaps of employees is necessary to resolve the issues. With this process the CEO of No Name Aircraft will able to train their staff across, it will help them to bring better understanding among employees (Rees & Smith, 2017).

Rewards and recognition:- To maintain a balance of positive to negative feedback reorganization is very much essential. An unexpected appreciation will motivates the employees and boost their morale to perform better in future. Understanding this concept and practicing this into his company will help the O’Meara to improve the performance of the management internationally.

However, there are also some challenges associated with performance management which is essential to identify and resolve by the manager with appropriate strategy and planning. Challenges are:

• The significance of employee’s learning
• Framing a global leadership
• Culture, Retention and engagement

Therefore, if the manager can overcome all these challenges, then it is possible for the company to increase their profit and the price of the share by the better performance of their employees and a better understanding of each other.

Training and Development can be termed as ‘the formal, continuous efforts which are done in an organisation to increase the performance of its employees’. According to Human Resource Management (HRM), training & development is “a function related to an organisation activities focused on bettering of the job performance of employees and departments in an organisation. Training & Development can also describe as “a learning process which includes the sharpening of basic skill sets, perception, attitude towards work, gaining more knowledge and experience for the betterment of the performance” (Brewster & Hegewisch, 2017).

Figure: 2

Even in this case as a function of HR, training and development should concern with every aspect of the organisation’s activities. As it is mention in the case study, there are no feedback avenues for employees to comment on the effectiveness of the expatriate training. However, it has observed that the level of performance at ‘No Name’ indicates there is a powerful rationale for focusing more on training and development across the organisation to enhance the business (Forehand & Kotchick, 2016).

There are various benefits while implementing the training and development process appropriately, such as:

Increase in Production: It will improve the efficiency and productivity of employees of No name Aircraft. Well trained candidates can help the organisation to grow in every respect both in quality and quantity. There is also less wastage of money, resource and time when candidates trained properly (Subramaniam et al., 2016).

Advantages of Cultural Diversity

Reduction of mistakes: Errors mostly take place due to lack of desired knowledge and skill required by the employee. Training and Development help to reduce the accidents and errors. The more trained an employee is, there are fewer chances of committing mistakes in that job.

Espirit de corps (Team Spirit): It also helps in building a sense of team spirit, inter-team collaborations. It contributes to inculcate the zeal within the employees.

Skill Development: Training and Development increase the knowledge and skill of employees at each point of point. It helps to build the new horizons of our intellect and overall personality of all employees.

Optimum Resource Utilisation: Training and Development help to give an opportunity and makes an architect for the development of human resource, behaviour skills, personality skills, technical expertise for the optimum utilisation of resources.

Increased Consistency: A well-trained employee can have constant knowledge and experience which can be very helpful for the organisation. Well- trained employees will make less error and therefore will help to increase consistency (Mengistu, 2016). It also ensures that the tasks are completed on time and with no issues, and there should be no question about how the work should do.

Types of Employee Training over which the company should need to give focus while conducting their training and development program are:

Communication: Today’s world requires a broad range of languages and customs which improve the workforce.

Computer Skills: For administrative and office tasks it is necessary to have basic computer skills.

Safety: This type of training is very crucial in the dangerous working environment, working with dangerous chemicals, etc.

Diversity: This type of training explains how the human has different perspective and views and also includes techniques to value diversity.

By focusing over these factors it is possible that the company can meet their desire goals and also able to bring better and improve environment among their employees (Clarke & Higgs, 2016). 

After analysing the entire discussion based on the case study of the No Name Aircraft (Gelfand et al., 2017), has recommended few points that can help the company to accomplish their set goals. Therefore, the company needs to improve their plan to develop diversity in their workplace. Apart from this Promoting diversity in leadership positions, utilizing diversity training are also essential factors need to be improved. Moreover, the company also needs to train and appreciate their employee in all aspects so that they can work together as a team in spite of irrespective of culture, tradition or style of communication.

Challenges Faced

Conclusion

The overall discussion has highlighted that the Human Resource management is a way of selecting the employees and them the correct training as well as observing the performance. Also providing safety in the organization and maintaining a better environment so that a good relationship can develop among the employees is significant (Masa’deh et al., 2016). It will help the CEO of No name to reduce his concern and possibilities of risk, on the other hand, it will help him to increase the profit and to maximise shareholders’ return on investment and obtain a high share price in nearer future.

References

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Ban, C., 2013. Management and culture in an enlarged European Commission: from diversity to unity?. Springer.

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Deresky, H., 2017. International management: Managing across borders and cultures. Pearson Education India.

Forehand, R. and Kotchick, B.A., 2016. Cultural Diversity: A Wake-Up Call for Parent Training–Republished Article. Behavior therapy, 47(6), pp.981-992.

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Kim, H.K., Lee, U.H. and Kim, Y.H., 2015. The effect of workplace diversity management in a highly male-dominated culture. Career Development International, 20(3), pp.259-272.

Lauring, J., 2013. International diversity management: Global ideals and local responses. British Journal of Management, 24(2), pp.211-224.

Mahadevan, J. and Mayer, C.H. eds., 2017. Muslim Minorities, Workplace Diversity and Reflexive Hrm. Taylor & Francis.

Masa’deh, R.E., Obeidat, B.Y. and Tarhini, A., 2016. A Jordanian empirical study of the associations among transformational leadership, transactional leadership, knowledge sharing, job performance, and firm performance: A structural equation modelling approach. Journal of Management Development, 35(5), pp.681-705.

Mengistu, D., 2016. The effect of Training and Development on Employee Performance Improvement the case of CBE (Doctoral dissertation, Addis Ababa University).

Oh, I.S., Blau, G., Han, J.H. and Kim, S., 2017. Human Capital Factors Affecting Human Resource (HR) Managers’ Commitment to HR and the Mediating Role of Perceived Organizational Value on HR. Human Resource Management, 56(2), pp.353-368.

Pinho, J.C. and Prange, C., 2016. The effect of social networks and dynamic internationalization capabilities on international performance. Journal of World Business, 51(3), pp.391-403.

Rees, G. and Smith, P. eds., 2017. Strategic human resource management: An international perspective. Sage.

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Subramaniam, B., Selvanayagam, J. and Yogarajah, V., 2016. Impact of Recruitment and Selection, Training and Development, Performance Evaluation, and Compensation (HRM Practices) on Employees’ Trust.

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