Members : Jillian Cheong Rebecca Tan Rex Teo Kenneth Lean

Mun Wei Tolulope

Problem Biases - Boss chose to promote staff that is more popular instead of the international staff who has more experience in the organization

Litigation Employees may bring the issue to court if the boss continues with racial discrimination

Loss of employees Company is at risks of losing good and hardworking employees

Wasted time Managers throw away dozens of hours each year from dealing with bias-related conflicts.

Apply principles to an organization Assure that the organization recognizes, value and affirm the diversity in the workplace Helps enhance quality of the organization Take pride in various achievements and celebrate the differences Understand the benefits of workplace diversity Increase greater teamwork, thinking outside the box, mutual understanding and respect

Problem Lack of cultural awareness - The male employee seems to be unaware of Muslim culture where they have to fast during the 8th month.

Prevents staffs from communicating efficiently

This will eventually lead to lost of respect, trust

and interest among the staff Lack of communication among staffs develops an unhealthy atmosphere in the organization.

Stress and tension

Results in low outsource along with poor income

and shortage of cooperation and understanding.

What must we know?

We must build cultural knowledge. We should treat people as individuals.

Cultural knowledge must be implemented.

Try and learn a bit more about other cultures and countries. Information is easily found on the internet and in books. Ask your colleagues. Start to build some sort of cultural awareness.

Information in other cultures is usually based on generalizations. This means that the information will not apply to every single member of that culture. Be aware of this and try and deal with people as individuals.

If you have discovered some useful information about a culture that is represented in your multicultural team put it to the test. It is only by putting these things into action that you will come to see the benefits and learn more.

Problem: Stereotyping.
A boss of an organization picks his potential

employee through stereotyping his or her background without looking into further information.

Provide intercultural training in the workplace for every employee, including high positioners in an organization.

A common observation people make about intercultural awareness training is that it stereotypes people. The fact that intercultural training presents information on a particular nationality or culture is taken to be a negative attribute, i.e. that we box people with rigid labels that correlate to their behavior, values or actions.

Intercultural training must therefore provide people with some sort of standard against which they can make reference. This is done through "generalizations" not stereotypes. Generalizations are different from and far more reliable than stereotypes. What intercultural training does is observe a people, pinpoint commonalities and draw certain conclusions based on these. For example, an intercultural researcher or trainer working and/or living in Kuwait is able to make a few accurate, but at the same time, general statements about the Kuwaitis.

A salient point to note is that intercultural training discourages participants from using blanket views of peoples. The spirit and ethos of intercultural training is to encourage people to discover one another through personal interaction.

What intercultural training does

provide people who feel they need to know more

about a country before working or living there with a safety net. This safety net provides them with a safe form of reference when they are unsure about an intercultural situation. Once that person actually goes though the experience of meeting someone, conducting negotiations or entertaining a guest they can then discard the safety net and refer to their own experiences.

As we can see, being sensitive to intercultural differences is a need for many people. In a world that is constantly shrinking, coming to know and appreciate the cultural differences between us is paramount to ensuring the future is one of co-operation and mutual success.