Effective Communication in a Diverse Workplace

Abstract

Due to globalization, today’s work environment has become diverse as people from different cultures, religions and backgrounds have come together. They bring with them, diverse skills, knowledge and expertise. They have their own views, ideas, perceptions and opinions which are totally different from one another's as they all come from different walks of life. To succeed in a multicultural society, an organization must value the differences of its workforce, respect the individuality of all employees and maintain a climate in which everyone is treated with dignity. Everyone in business today needs to better understand other cultures, as well as other age groups, gender groups, and lifestyle groups. All this can happen only if there is an effective communication among all the employees, from top to bottom. This paper explains how important is it to have a diverse workforce, what difficulties could come in the way of effective communication in such diverse workplaces and how to overcome these difficulties in an effective manner.

Keywords: diversity, effective communication, globalization, workplace, strategy