Workforce Diversity and Cross-Cultural Behaviour

A public-sector bank branch in Hyderabad has twelve staff. Their ages run from 23 to 58; they come from four states, speak five languages and follow three religions. The manager plans every team event as a Saturday evening dinner, and the same three people never come.

Diversity is more than tolerance. Tolerance only puts up with a difference; diversity means inclusion, equal opportunity and respect. Its benefits include innovation, creativity, balanced decisions, harmony and efficiency.

Managing diversity means creating a workplace where everyone can perform fairly and without bias. It has four parts:

• Fairness and equity: equal opportunity in hiring, pay and promotion.
• Inclusion: valuing different identities, not only counting them.
• Respect: preventing discrimination and harassment.
• Business link: tying diversity to performance and competitiveness.

Each dimension of diversity calls for something different from the organisation.

Back at the bank branch. The Saturday dinner suits the young, unmarried staff. It excludes a 55-year-old officer who cares for a parent, and two staff who do not eat out on certain days for religious reasons. A lunch on a working day would include all twelve. Nothing was forbidden; the event was simply designed around one group.

In Indian workplaces, language, region and caste are also important dimensions, alongside those in the table.

Don't confuse diversity with inclusion. Diversity is the mix of people an organisation has. Inclusion is whether each of them is heard, valued and able to progress. A firm can hire a diverse workforce and still exclude most of it from decisions.

Where it breaks. The benefits are not automatic. Reviews of the research find mixed effects: diverse teams can bring more ideas, but also more conflict and weaker cohesion. Good results depend on how the differences are managed.

For exams. Learn the dimensions with what each calls for, the four parts of managing diversity, and the point that diversity is more than tolerance.

Primary and secondary dimensions. Marilyn Loden and Judy Rosener (1991) split diversity another way. Primary dimensions are those a person cannot change, such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, physical ability and sexual orientation. Secondary dimensions can change over a life, such as education, income, marital status, religion, work experience and location. This is a different split from surface and deep level, which is about how visible a difference is.

Race and ethnicity are not the same. Race is a social category based on visible traits such as skin colour. Ethnicity is shared ancestry, language, customs and history. In India, language and region are the more common ethnic lines.

Age bias works both ways. Hiring only from campuses shuts out older people who want entry-level work. Demanding years of experience for every post shuts out young people who already have the skill.

A call-centre firm in Chennai hired widely, from many states and from both men and women. A year later the managing director asks whether diversity has paid. Attrition among the new groups is high, yet the language desks keep customers happiest. The answer depends on why the firm wanted diversity and what it did next.

Why firms bother. Managing diversity well is said to bring five gains.

Challenges. The same mix also brings communication gaps over language, tone and silence; conflict between groups; stereotypes and favouritism towards the in-group; resistance from people who see fairness for others as their loss; and slower agreement in mixed teams.

Three approaches. Each answers the question "why do we want diversity?" differently.

Back in Chennai. The firm hired to meet fairness targets, then placed language speakers only on their own language desks. That is fairness plus access. It never asked those staff how calls should be scripted or shifts planned, and none became team leaders. A learning approach would ask them, and open the path to leadership.

Don't confuse equal opportunity with affirmative action. Equal opportunity means a fair chance for everyone: no one is barred because of the group they belong to. Affirmative action means positive steps, such as outreach, targets or preference, to correct past disadvantage. In India, Article 15 of the Constitution bars discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. Article 16 guarantees equal opportunity in public employment and also allows reservation for disadvantaged groups.

Article 16, and Article 15(1), bind the State. Private employers are bound mainly through statutes. These include the POSH Act (next block), the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019. They also include the ban on pay discrimination between men and women, now in the Code on Wages, 2019. Older exam questions still name the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.

Where it breaks. The three approaches are a way of describing firms, not a ladder every firm climbs in order. Many firms mix them. Thomas and Ely argued for the third. The benefits are what firms hope for, not what they are sure to get, because the research finds mixed results.

For exams. Learn the five benefits, the three approaches with the danger of each, and the difference between equal opportunity and affirmative action.

An auto-parts plant in Pune hires its first ten women for the shop floor. Within six months four have left. Exit talks reveal no single cause: a missing changing room, jokes nobody stopped, and supervisors who gave the skilled jobs to men.

Seven techniques are commonly used. The third column shows how each might apply at the Pune plant, as an illustration.

The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that stops women and minorities from rising to the top jobs, even when no rule bars them. In India, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 requires every employer with 10 or more employees to set up an Internal Complaints Committee at each office to hear complaints. Smaller workplaces are covered by a Local Committee set up for the district.

Diversity also plays out in groups.

• Formal groups are set up for organisational tasks, such as an HR team.
• Informal groups grow from personal relationships, such as a lunch group.
• In-groups and out-groups: an in-group is the circle people feel they belong to; everyone else is the out-group. In-groups create belonging for some and exclusion for others. At the plant, if supervisors share tea only with the men, the women become an out-group.

Members also take roles. Task roles move the work forward (the planner). Relationship roles hold the group together (the motivator). Individual roles serve the person, not the group (the dominator).

Don't confuse equal treatment with identical treatment. Giving everyone the same changing room, shift and transport is identical treatment. It is not fair if the room, shift or transport works for only one group. Equity sometimes needs different arrangements for the same opportunity.

Where it breaks. A one-off training session changes little on its own. A large study of US employers by Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin and Erin Kelly (2006) found that diversity training alone did little to raise the share of women and minorities in management. Making someone responsible, through a committee or task force, and mentoring did more.

In practice. Start with the exit data and the complaints: they show which technique is missing. Then give a named person or committee the job of fixing it.

Once women do reach the top, a second risk appears: the glass cliff. They are more often appointed to leadership posts when a firm is already in trouble and failure is likelier. Michelle Ryan and Alexander Haslam described it in 2005.

Kinds of group. Formal groups come in three common kinds:

• Command group: a supervisor and the people who report to them on the organisation chart.
• Task group (task force): people brought together for a narrow goal in a set time, such as a committee on cutting costs. It ends when the goal is met.
• Functional group: created for goals with no end date, so it outlasts any one goal. The HR department is an example.

Informal groups also come in kinds. An interest group unites people, often from different departments, by a shared concern, such as a study group. A friendship group forms around shared social activities, beliefs or other bonds. A reference group is the group people compare themselves with to judge their own views and actions; they need not belong to it.

Roles in more detail. Common lists name these roles.

• Task: initiator (proposes), informer (gives facts), clarifier (explains), summariser (pulls ideas together), reality tester (criticises ideas against facts).
• Relationship: harmoniser (eases tension), gatekeeper (makes sure everyone speaks), encourager (is warm and accepting), compromiser (gives way to limit conflict), consensus tester (checks whether the group agrees).
• Individual: aggressor (attacks others and their ideas), blocker (opposes beyond reason), dominator (insists on superiority).

In a diverse team, the gatekeeper matters most: quieter members, often from out-groups, are heard only if someone opens the door.

A Swedish manager takes charge of a design team in Pune. She asks for open challenge in meetings, and gets polite silence. Her juniors expect her to decide; she expects them to argue. Neither side is wrong, but the meeting fails.

Globalisation brings multicultural workplaces, cultural differences and the need to adapt. Done well, it brings adaptation to cultural norms, better international HR strategies, better cooperation, fewer misunderstandings and greater global competitiveness.

Hofstede's dimensions. Geert Hofstede surveyed IBM employees in many countries around 1970 and published the results in Culture's Consequences (1980). He found four dimensions on which national cultures differed. A fifth, long-term against short-term orientation, was added later; a sixth, indulgence against restraint, in 2010.

Back to the Pune team. India scores high on power distance in Hofstede's data, and Sweden low. The juniors wait for the boss to decide; the boss waits for debate. A fix that respects both: she asks each person for a written view before the meeting, then decides openly and explains why.

Don't apply a country's score to one person. Hofstede's scores are national averages. Many Indians challenge their bosses freely, and many Americans prefer group decisions. Hofstede himself warned against reading individuals from country scores.

Where it breaks. Critics point out that the data came from one company, at one time, decades ago. A country is not always one culture: India has many regional and language cultures. Cultures also change, and a single score can hide that.

For exams. Expect "which dimension?" from a description, and the example country at each end. Power distance is about hierarchy; uncertainty avoidance is about risk and rules, not about power.

P, U, I, M, T: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, time orientation.

An Indian software firm in Bengaluru bids for work from a Japanese and a German client. In Tokyo, "that will be difficult" ends the discussion politely: it means no. In Munich, the client wants a signed, clause-by-clause timetable. The same firm meets two different rules for what words and promises mean. Hofstede's scores say little about this.

Hall: high and low context. Edward T. Hall (Beyond Culture, 1976) asked where the meaning of a message sits.

Trompenaars: seven dimensions. Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner described seven. The first five are about how people relate to one another; the last two are about time and nature.

Lewis: three types. Richard Lewis (When Cultures Collide, 1996) sorted cultures by how people work. Linear-active people plan, do one thing at a time and keep to schedules (Germans, Swiss). Multi-active people do many things at once and put relationships first (Italians, Arabs, Latin Americans). Reactive people listen first, avoid confrontation and protect face (Japanese, Chinese).

Cultural intelligence. Christopher Earley and Soon Ang (2003) turned the question round: instead of describing cultures, they described a skill. It has four parts.

• Drive (motivational): the interest and confidence to work across cultures.
• Knowledge (cognitive): what you know about other cultures.
• Strategy (metacognitive): planning, and checking your assumptions during contact.
• Action (behavioural): adapting words, gestures and pace.

Back to Bengaluru. For Tokyo, the team learns the customs (knowledge), listens for hedges and builds the relationship first (action), and agrees beforehand to check each "difficult" in private (strategy). For Munich, it sends a detailed written plan in advance. The team's wish to win both clients is the drive.

Don't confuse high-context with high power distance. Context is about how meaning travels in communication. Power distance is about accepting unequal power. Do not assume one follows from the other.

Where it breaks. These models are generalisations, and people differ within every culture. Hall's and Lewis's types come mainly from the authors' observation, so they are firmer as questions than as facts. Use them to ask "what might this mean here?", then check with the person in front of you.

For exams. Match thinker to idea: Hofstede (five dimensions, later six), GLOBE (nine dimensions), Hall (context), Trompenaars (seven), Lewis (three types), Earley and Ang (cultural intelligence).

An engineer from a Pune auto-parts firm is posted to the company's plant in Germany. The first month is exciting. By the third month he is irritable, homesick and sure his German colleagues dislike him, though nothing has changed but his mood.

Causes. Language barriers, new customs and emotional stress. Small things add up: how to greet a colleague, when a meeting really starts, whether "maybe" means yes or no.

How it develops. A common model, the U-curve, describes four stages.

How it is reduced. The order matters: prepare people before they go, support them when the crisis comes, and help them settle in.

Cross-cultural training covers five areas. The third column applies them to the engineer, as an illustration.

Don't confuse culture shock with reverse culture shock. Culture shock comes on arrival in a new culture. Reverse culture shock comes on returning home, when the person has changed and home feels strange. Firms often prepare people to go, and forget to prepare them to come back.

Where it breaks. Reviews of the research give the U-curve only weak support. Many people never have a honeymoon, and the timing of the low point varies widely. Treat the stages as a warning of what can happen, not a timetable.

In practice. Plan for the crisis before it comes: a local mentor, a check-in call around the third month, and language lessons that continue after arrival.

Cultural distance. The wider the gap between home and host cultures, the harder adjustment tends to be. An executive moving from India to Korea meets a new language, new food and unfamiliar customs at once. A move to Singapore, with its large Indian community and familiar food, is usually easier.