[RAHMATULLAH RAHMATI

(ID#13596)

Importance of intercultural in the workplace and self-awareness

Communicating by different means and being able to respond to verbal queries
from everywhere is todays improvement and by help of technology that has
affected every part of our life. But most important thing is to be able to work and
communicate with people from different background and ethnicity who are different
in terms of verbal communication and word meanings. More important sometimes
their

attitude

and

reaction

toward

some

tiny

cultural

differences

are

so

sophisticated. Professional needs to learn the importance of intercultural and selfawareness in workplace.
People mostly come from different background, ethnicity, different region & religion,
and different country and create heterogeneous workplace. Sometimes Ineffective
communication or misunderstanding of cultural values in the work environment can
even lead to discrimination and harassment. It does not only hurt an individual but
also the organization reputation among the society.
Workplace, where you will be interacting and communicating with colleagues at
least eight to ten hours a day and this interaction and communication play a key
role in success and failure of workplace and effective work environment. Part of the
issue self-awareness and many people are unaware of what their own culture is.
Self-awareness which is defined by experts as understanding your own culture is
another main reason for studying intercultural communication. It allows people to
know their own culture, cultural identity and cultural background. This will lead to
avoid confusion misunderstanding of the culture and its concepts in society.
Furthermore, professionals mostly focus on familiarizing themselves with their own
culture and then studying others culture and see the differences and use it as
positive marketing tools.
In conclusion, Recognizing and understanding cultures differences and showing
respect to others cultures prevent discriminations. This understanding paves ground
for more sufficient and friendly work environment. Most of multi-culture companies
recruit people from different background and different culture and society to have a
diversity workplace and to avoid conflict of interest at most. Lack of information

Business Communication / AUAF/ Fall 2015

[RAHMATULLAH RAHMATI

(ID#13596)

about employees with different identities will lead to poor and ineffective
communication in the workplaces and will result in loss of human resource and
financial lose.

Business Communication / AUAF/ Fall 2015