Impact and Issues of Cross-cultural Workforce in Human Resource Development

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would first like to express my gratitude for my research coordinator, colleagues, and peers and family whose immense and constant support has been a source of continuous guidance and inspiration.

DECLARATION

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTii

DECLARATIONiii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

1.1 Introduction1

1.2 Issues and Impact of cross-cultural workforce in HR development: The Organization under study: PCWorld, Staples Corner, Geron Way, London, U.K4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW7

2.1 Cultural Diversity7

2.2 Understanding “The Culture”9

2.3 Objectives of Diversity11

2.3.1. Understanding the Issues of Diversity11

2.3.2 Incorporating Diversity with Company's Vision14

2.3.3 Human Resource Diversity and Equality Models16

2.3.4 HRD Applications and Diversity Management18

2.4 Benefits of Diversity in Workplace21

2.5 Common Challenges22

2.5.1 Management Solutions and Recommendations to Sustain Diversity Culture24

REFERENCES26

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

Diversity within institutions depends largely on the resolution of individual organizations to take the initiative in identifying and building a roadmap for themselves, which will best meet the contrasting needs of the employers, employees and other partners they are seeking to serve.  Diversity at workplace constitutes of cross- cultural workforce that engages in different occupational tasks together, keeping their own identities intact. Such difference in identities may lead to conflict, if remain scattered and unmerged. Effective management of diversity includes treating every employee, from top executive to the lower levels, with fairness and equality. Employees could be men and women with different race such as Blacks, Whites, Asian, Hispanic, disable, gays as well as lesbians (Buckley, Monks, 2004, 433-450). The British companies seldom disregard diversity at work, most of them discourage the trend just for the sake of avoiding a bad reputation in the media news, a lawsuit, or simply the government pressure which is also known as affirmative action in United Kingdom. Other times, companies encourage diversity because it is a healthy and beneficial practice for human resource development. On a positive note, potential customers could be generated by being non-discriminate toward certain groups of people. As Bolman & Deal (2003) said applying a culture of diversity comes down to focus and promotion on a daily basis, such as diversifying a candidate pool, using minority-owned vendors, and giving the opportunity to the workforce for their professional and personal development. Although diversity has been widely agreed to be a sound feature of workplace culture, institutional and organizational diversity is under threat and more serious efforts are required to sustain the practice before it leads to distress and indiscipline.

Till the middle of the last century, only racial discrimination was commonly observed among communities and organizations where the races were treated with sheer inequality. Slowly but surely, other issues such as nationality and disability started to surface (Chuang, Church, Zikic, 2004, 26-34). The government has been active on promoting diversity throughout the western ...