Managing Cultural Diversity in the Workplace Environment Essay

Managing Cultural Diversity in the Workplace Environment - Essay Example Cultural diversity refers to people belonging to diverse cultures working in one organisation, which is rampant in Singapore because of its history of immigrants and also due to its growing economic prospects. The present discourse focuses on the way Singapore manages its cultural diversity. The topic explores various governmental initiatives as well as organisational policies towards diversity management in this region. During the process, a critical view of the policies and practices and their impact on other aspects of organisational performance would be placed to assess the effectiveness of the policies and practices. Moreover, possible recommendations to tackle these challenges would be suggested based on organisational practices. 2. Background: While the effects of globalization have been so profound that all organisations have to adapt to the changes, diversity is one of the strategies adopted for sustainability and performance. This reflects in their policies and practices wi th respect to human resources management. Though the western countries adopted this route much earlier, it is relatively newer concept in most of the Eastern nations (Mor-Barack, 2005). This does not mean that the Eastern nations did not employ people from different cultures and ethnic groups; but just that the organisations have started adopting policies and practices to encourage and, to an extent, suit multicultural and diverse populations during last few decades. The most important requirement for managing diversity comes from equal rights act and policies congruent with this act, which create favourable social, legal and organisational environment to all groups of people. Secondly, organisational policies and practices that encourage and support diversified workforce. 3. Rationale: Globalization has provided extraordinary benefits to organisations, which has enticed many organisations to enter the global market. This has further increased the numbers of people from different ba ckgrounds, cultures, races and ethnic groups to work together at different locations. On the other hand, organisations in some sectors are known to have moved to other places in order to flourish because the legislation there was more conducive to their strategies; for example, Singapore has relaxed legislation related to bioresearch, unlike in the Western countries. Many Western bioresearch organisations shifted their base to Singapore (Huat, 2011). Much before such movements, Singapore is known for cultural diversity because it was established because of immigrants from different parts of the world, which created a plural and highly diverse and ethnic society (Chen-Tung, Ong & Chen, 1980). With such high cultural diversity, Singapore is one of the most advanced and flourished nations in the Asia-Pacific region. Many reasons make Singapore as the focus of discussion related to management of cultural diversity in organisations. The immense industrial growth in Singapore suggests tha t workplace diversity, specifically cultural diversity, is being managed effectively; this fact is further reinforced by the immense movement that is continuing, and potential that still exists in this part of the world. Secondly, Singapore hosts a variety of cultural mix, which makes it even more difficult for diversity management for organisations if they have to cater to the cultural differences of all groups that are a part of them. At least these two critical reasons are enough to explore