Cultural Competence in the Workplace: Strategies and Benefits

The significance of cultural competence in the workplace is a factor that every leader should prioritize because every year, its importance grows. A study by the Pew Research Center found that by 2035, the number of immigrant workers and those with immigrant parents will be the largest growing working-age demographic in the U.S. 

The workforce will largely be workers with varying cultural backgrounds, and organizations intent on creating inclusive work environments should understand and celebrate the various cultures represented. Today, we're talking about the importance of cultural competence and its role in the workplace.

As you know, cultural diversity in the workplace should be your priority as a manager or leader. It’s crucial for a harmonious work environment because:

• It creates a sense of belonging and thus an environment better for employee well-being.
• Exposure to fresh perspectives and different points of view enhances your workers’ creativity.
• When employees feel celebrated and embraced instead of tolerated, you get higher retention rates.
• A diverse workforce boosts productivity.
• Your company’s growth is likely to happen more quickly with cultural diversity.

Before diving into the best practices to make your workplace culturally competent, let's look at the primary elements of it. 

1. Awareness of your cultural worldview

Naturally, many workers already have a strong worldview. But it's likely filtered through unconscious biases or certain beliefs toward other cultures. Becoming aware of and successfully identifying these biases is the first step toward a more open-minded viewpoint.

2. Attitude toward cultural differences

As a result of those closely held beliefs, employees are likely to react to cultural differences in different ways. Again, these attitudes are born from the fact that workers come from various backgrounds. Training and educational programs can help broaden awareness and create better understanding between employees from different backgrounds. 

3. Deep knowledge of different cultural worldviews

The third component of cultural competence in the workplace is knowledge. Learning more about how people from certain backgrounds perceive workplace elements can help workers achieve more fruitful communication channels. Such elements include (but aren’t limited to) management style, problem-solving skills, employee engagement, etc. 

4. Cross-cultural skills

Finally, you can’t reach perfect cultural competence on the past three factors alone. Being able to communicate with respect, celebrate the success of others, and continually broaden your awareness helps create inclusive environments.

Cultural competence is a crucial part of how to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and that manifests in dozens of ways in the workplace. Here are some of the major areas. 

1. Increased appreciation for other perspectives

Working in an environment that embraces different beliefs allows workers to broaden their horizons. 

With that comes the benefit of appreciating other perspectives without prejudice. This level of open-mindedness can introduce new ideas to your business, which promises growth in unique ways.

2. Enhanced creativity and more diverse ideas

Since your teams will welcome fresh perspectives, there’ll be room for more creativity among them.

A healthy, inclusive workplace doesn’t shut down new ideas. Having a solid base of diverse ideas and thoughts can help you solve work-related issues in new and creative ways.

3. Improved listening and communication

With cultural competence, everyone is ready to listen to their coworkers without judgment. This minimizes the chances of misunderstanding and promotes harmonious interactions.

Healthy communication is linked to employees’ well-being, which is essential for a positive work environment.

4. Collaboration and teamwork

With improved listening and communication, it’s only natural to expect a boost in effective collaboration and top-notch teamwork. Being in a place with good team collaboration leads to better decision-making and employee engagement.

5. Job satisfaction and employee retention

Turnover is disruptive and expensive for an organization. A study found that the cost of losing an employee is around 33% of their annual salary.

6. Meeting the needs of diverse customers and clients

A workplace that promotes diversity in every department is more capable of dealing with clients from different backgrounds. 

Having your customers feel like their needs are understood and met enhances the customer experience. 

Organizations often face a set of challenges when building a DEI strategy.

In the report, "CIOs Must Renew Commitments to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to Boost Talent Retention", Gartner notes that, "too many DEI programs lack benchmarks, measurable targets, and clear business outcomes."

The biggest challenge is focusing on too much at once.

Building a more inclusive and equitable workplace requires a lot of changes across an organization. It's important not to spread teams too thin by trying to do too much at once. It's more impactful to focus on a handful of objectives with varying timelines rather than a dozen that are all high priority. 

Being culturally competent is crucial for a safe and productive workplace. Here are some tactical steps employers can take to build competency. 

1. Provide workplace bias training

The first step toward cultural competence is to create awareness of how unconscious biases are shaping the workplace. This strategy should revolve around training and open conversations about recognizing bias and how to minimize it. 

The training should also discuss and aim to solve current systemic and structural issues within your organization.

2. Implement an equitable hiring process

An equitable hiring process works to address current shortcomings in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring diverse talent. Part of this process should be ensuring that job descriptions contain inclusive language and that interview questions are the same for everyone.

3. Ensure fair and equitable compensation practices

This strategy focuses on creating suitable payment plans solely dependent on experience. It starts by reevaluating your compensation rates and making adjustments so that people who are the same professionally get equal payOpens in a new tab.

This is the type of initiative that prospective and current employees alike look for in an organization. You naturally improve your chances of recruitment and retention when you pay people fairly. 

4. Foster meaningful cross-cultural relationships

Being culturally competent is a boon to employees in and outside of the workplace. You should encourage your workers to build meaningful cross-cultural relationships. This is the type of practice that transforms your company culture.

5. Prioritize cultural competence learning for leadership

Educating your management team on the values you’d like to see in the workplace is an important step into a more inclusive company. They set the tone for whether or not cultural competence is a priority.

Your leadership should have a clear understanding of the answers to the following questions at least:

• What is cultural diversity in the workplace?
• Why is diversity important?
• What does DEIB mean?
• What other practices and strategies can improve the company’s cultural competence?

6. Create a psychologically safe environment for dialogue

Cultural competence is creating a safe space for understanding, belonging, healthy communication, and inclusivity.

This is why your workplace should provide ample room for dialogue, starting from a psychological point of view. For instance, you should:

7. Evaluate and reflect on personal biases

Achieving cultural competence in the workplace stems from a deep knowledge of where your company stands on the diversity spectrum. By identifying that, your approaches will be more realistic and tailored to your company’s culture.

Look closely at who usually runs initiatives, gets more opportunities, or is more likely to receive promotions. Are these decisions based on performance, or are there other reasons for them?

You can also do anonymous surveys to gather feedback from your employees. This approach will help you understand more about any instances of inequity within the workplace that leaders may be overlooking.

With some effective strategies to kickstart your journey to cultural competence, it’s time to know about a few real-life examples. 

1. Offering cultural sensitivity training programs

A culturally competent workplace should offer a training program dedicated to cultural sensitivity. This training aims to teach employees to appreciate coworkers from different backgrounds. 

The best thing about such a program is that it doesn’t focus on a certain group but cultivates the skill of embracing everyone regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, or age.

2. Creating employee resource groups for different cultures

Another tried-and-true example of building cultural competence is establishing employee resource groups (ERGs) for different cultures. 

These employee resource groups can provide a meeting space for those from the same culture and allow others to learn about their traditions, beliefs, and experiences. As a result, you can expect a higher level of awareness in your workplace.

3. Providing language and communication support

To overcome any language and communication barrier in the workplace, invest in effective support channels.

For example, you could create language learning opportunities for a multilingual workforce to help them understand each other. Or think about using multiple forms of communication that can cater to individual needs.

What are the barriers to cultural competence?

Some barriers often get in the way of cultural competence. A few can be unavoidable, while others are based on personal beliefs:

• Language barriers and geographical distance
• Stereotyping and cliches through portrayals in the media
• Psychological barriers and personal preferences
• Conflicting values and beliefs

How to best deal with cultural competence barriers?

Here are a few tried-and-true practices to overcome the barriers that cultural competence in the workplace tends to face:

• Practice open-mindedness in all situations.
• Provide different channels that promote cultural awareness.
• Adjust your company’s rules and guidelines.

Cultural competence in the workplace has countless benefits. A work environment that embraces differences and leaves no room for discrimination is a healthy work environment. On top of a cohesive company culture, you can expect higher job satisfaction, higher retention rates, and better collaboration. In short, your business is better when it is culturally competent.

Any organization that wants to thrive in the future of work needs to start reinforcing cultural competence strategies now. In time, you’ll have a culturally rich workplace where new ideas and perspectives take center stage.