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Percepta – Adding Value to Your Voice

Managing Cultural DiversityManaging Cultural DiversityOctober 2009

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Contents

What is Cultural Diversity Management? Why is it important? What is the Business Case for Percepta Australia? What are the Benefits? Aim of the Percepta Project External and Internal Environments How to manage Cultural Diversity Action Plan to reduce the gap Case Study Questions?

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What is Cultural Diversity Management?

It is the on-going process of incorporating the recognition of workforce and customer differences into all core business management functions, communications, processes and services to create a fair, harmonious, inclusive, creative and effective organisation.

It means effectively encapsulating the differences between individuals and utilising this synergy to improve the workplace. This often occurs through inclusion on problem solving tasks and processes, focussing upon differences and ideas as a tool to use in advanced problem solving.

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Why is it important? 

Managing cultural diversity in an effective way can lead to a range of benefits. It allows you to enhance the synergy of a workforce and provide a sustainable competitive advantage in the market place.

Human factors are one of the most central aspects to any profitable business.

Potential productivity - Faulty process (often human) = Actual productivity of your business

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A workforce that has various cultural backgrounds will naturally have differing mental modes, experiences and functional levels. Employees have a unique combination of skills, attributes and perspectives that can be seen as resources themselves. These unique differences can help increase creative innovation and problem solving capabilities when you are able to effectively increase the flow of information, ideas and opinions. Increasing this flow arises once an inclusive and nurturing environment is fostered that respects, values and encourages the various perspectives that employees can bring to the table.

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What is the Business Case for Percepta Australia? 

We currently have a culturally diverse workforce

Australia’s national multiculturalism requires us to better understand the

diversity of our customer base

Our unique location to the Asia Pacific market

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What are the Benefits?

Reduced workforce turnover Reduced absenteeism Improved morale and productivity Improved team effectiveness Improved long term planning for demographic trends Improved problem solving and decision making - reduces possible employee conflict Creates learning and development opportunities for employees Increased staff loyalty and engagement Improved customer service and customer relationships Increased social cohesion as a cornerstone of social progress Generates higher levels of customer satisfaction

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Aim of the Percepta Project

The aim of this project is to increase our awareness and understanding of workplace cultural diversity, whilst also being able to manage this diversity in a way that effectively improves workplace performance.

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Current State – External Environment The Australian Multicultural Foundation (AMF) in conjunction

with the Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship is running a project entitled ‘Managing Cultural Diversity’, and Percepta (Australia) is participating in the research and workshop components.

The project aims to increase cultural awareness and diversity in Australian workplaces by emphasising the business case.

Legislation…

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The Australian Context

Due to the cultural demographics of both the nation and the labour pool, Percepta (Australia) understand the need for managing cultural diversity.

Australia is comprised of a vast range of cultures through recent generations of migration. There are over 160 different dialects spoken in Australia and 25% of people have one or more parents born overseas.

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From Australia’s recent migration statistics, it is important to understand how culturally diverse Australia is, and therefore how culturally diverse both our clientele and labour pool is. Nearly 67% of migrants who enter the country do so with a skill or trade, with accountants, computer professionals, cooks, nurses, general managers, hairdressers, mechanical engineers, marketing specialists, civil engineers, business and information professionals being the most common professions.

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Two recent studies that examined cultural diversity within the workplace found that 86% of Australian businesses rated being able to effectively work with culturally diverse clientele or co-workers as extremely important.

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International Significance

Allows businesses to understand and communicate with international markets more effectively

Increased effectiveness of recruiting, inducting and training overseas qualified employees

Enhanced ability to work with culturally diverse clientele Enhanced reputation both nationally and internationally Establishment of durable, effective relationships /partnerships with

overseas agents, representatives and marketing agencies More robust international business ventures

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Current State – Internal Environment

Cultural Diversity Week Wellness Week Promotion of our Values Consistency with the way we treat people and recruit Inclusive celebrations (awards, birthdays, anniversaries) EEO Policies and legislation updates Sensitivity to cultural norms (headdress, prayer rooms)

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How to Manage Cultural Diversity  Effective management of diversity involves identifying and addressing human

factors relevant to your general business by examining 3 categories:

Compliance Factors - includes equal opportunity, access and equity, health and safety, discrimination, and harassment

Organisational Factors - includes organisational development, cultural factors, people management, knowledge management, product and service development, and customer service

Market Factors - includes industry relations, Government relations, community relations, domestic marketing and international marketing

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Actions to reduce the gap - AustraliaIncrease our current knowledge on managing cultural diversity through a ‘cultural diversity awareness project’.

This project aims to better understand of the cultures within Percepta, and devise strategies that harness these differences to make ourselves a more competitive and effective business

We will create training modules and presentations that will aim to increase knowledge on managing cultural diversity and working with culturally diverse clientele/co-workers for managers, team leaders and teams

By creating an awareness of the importance of managing diversity we aim to integrate diversity management into our core business through attitudes, policies and programmes and we expect to see an increase in business effectiveness, a readiness for new business prospects, and increase our customer satisfaction and employee engagement

 

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Acknowledgement and thanks to the Australian Multicultural Foundation

Questions?