A diverse and inclusive workplace has many benefits for everyone.
Diverse workplaces have team members from a range of different backgrounds and who may differ in terms of ability, age, gender, race and ethnicity. Inclusive workplaces are those where there is a widespread acceptance of the value of diversity and there are plans and actions put in place to promote and encourage diversity within the setting.
Diversity can include gender, language, ethnicity, cultural background, age, sexual orientation, religious belief and family responsibilities. Diversity also refers to other ways in which people are different, such as educational level, life experience, work experience, socio-economic background, personality, marital status and abilities/disabilities.
ACT Public Service (2010), Respect, Equity and Diversity Framework, p17.
In your job you will come into contact with many different cultural groups – for example, elderly people, Māori, Europeans, people living with Alzheimer’s disease, Asian or Pasifika people, registered nurses, care workers, kitchen staff and so on. As we have already seen, culture can affect the way a person or groups of people typically look at, think about, interact with, behave, form opinions and make decisions about situations and things. These differences can have an impact on your workplace.
Activity - Scenario
Think about this workplace scenario on cultural diversity: Julietta asked all staff to attend an important meeting at 10 a.m. You reorganised your schedule so that you could attend and so feel annoyed when Julietta turns up half an hour late. She says that she got caught up in a conversation with somebody else.
Cultural difference: Julietta’s culture might mean that she views time differently than you do. To her, finishing a conversation with someone about caring for a client may be far more important than being on time for a team meeting.
Workplace impact: Because the meeting couldn’t start until Julietta got there, the late start has put you and everyone else at the meeting half an hour behind for the rest of the day.
Scenario - Carl
You support Carl, a 26-year-old intellectually disabled man who lives in community-based housing. He has reduced language and speaking skills as a result of his disability. Carl doesn’t have any family nearby. His father passed away and his mother lives in another country and makes little effort to see him. Carl relies heavily on support workers to help him. Carl often tells you that he misses his father. When his father was alive they would go to the local A & P Show every summer. He tells you that his favourite things are the smell of hot dogs and riding the ferris wheel in the fairground. Carl is very physically amorous – he likes to show the people around him (men and woman) love and affection in a physical way. He also believes in the power of love, in showing it and sharing it. He is determined to have as much of it as possible, and thinks a lot about sex and having it. This seems to upset some people who are against intellectually disabled people having sex.
| Cultural feature | Differences | Workplace Impacts |
|---|---|---|
| Values | Carl’s father has passed away. His mother lives in another country and makes little effort to see him. Carl receives very little support from his family. Support workers are the people Carl relies on the most and he appreciates them being there to help him with things. |
Others may mistakenly assume that family plays a central role in Carl’s life. The result of this could be that Carl does not receive the level of support that he needs. |
| Beliefs | Carl believes in the power of love, in showing it and sharing it. He is determined to have as much of it as possible, and thinks a lot about sex and having it. | Some people may consider it immoral for an intellectually disabled person to be involved in a love relationship, especially when they are sexually active. |
| Use of language | Carl has reduced language and speaking skills as a result of his disability. | Carl’s communication difficulties may present difficulties in gaining access to the services he needs. |
| Cultural practices | When Carl’s father was alive, it was a longstanding tradition for them to go to the annual A & P Show together every summer. To this day, Carl loves the smell of hot dogs and riding the ferris wheel in the fairground | Given Carl’s intellectual disability and reduced communication skills, healthcare workers may not bother to try and find out about Carl’s cultural traditions or what they mean to him. |
| Accepted protocols | Carl is very amorous by nature – he is very ‘touchy-feely’ and likes to show plenty of love and affection towards other people in a physical way. | If your culture is different from Carl’s you might not like other people touching you or being in your personal space. Carl’s very physical way of showing affection might be uncomfortable for you and other healthcare workers. |
| Gender roles | Carl is very physically amorous – he likes to show the people around him (men and woman) love and affection in a physical way. His father passed away and his mother lives in another country. Carl didn’t have a father figure to teach him how to act around other men. | Healthcare workers may assume that Carl is gay and male healthcare workers may not feel comfortable supporting Carl. |
Stigma happens when others lower the value of a person or a group of people because they are linked with a certain situation, behaviour, viewpoint or practice. Stigma is usually associated with shame, disgrace or dishonour. For example, within some cultures a person may be stigmatised or devalued when:
- a teenager gets pregnant
- a marriage breaks up
- a man ‘comes out’ publicly as being homosexual.
Discrimination
Discrimination means making an unfair decision made based on a characteristic of a person, such as having a disability or being from a particular race or gender. In New Zealand, discrimination is against the law. In a workplace, it is important that everyone understands discrimination laws and how they protect people from discrimination.
Direct discrimination is easy to identify, and often involves clear statements which show bias or preference of one group of people or individual over another.
Indirect discrimination is more challenging to identify. Indirect discrimination relates to systemic, large scale mechanisms that make it more likely that a particular person or group of people will be favoured over another. For example, indirect discrimination occurs when a person who has dyslexia is unable to respond effectively to a job advertisement which has been written in overly complex and abstract language rather than in straight forward, easy to read Plain English.
Indirect discrimination still infringes the rights of people in a workplace, and it should always be addressed.
Relationships based on mutual respect and understanding are more likely to be fruitful and productive. Relationships which are not based on respect and understanding are more likely to include negative and damaging aspects which can ultimately be harmful for the workplace as a whole and can lead to conflict, loss of productivity, and the potential for bias and discrimination to affect activities and outcomes.
Workplace relationships
Within a workplace, there are relationships that exist at many levels. The way these relationships are conducted depends to a certain extent upon:
- The relative seniority of the people involved
- The level of familiarity they have with each other
- The task to be performed
- The timeframe available
- Interpersonal and intrapersonal factors such as cultural awareness, confidence, assertiveness, communication style and knowledge of the task or activity.
Workplace relationships often require people to work collaboratively to achieve business outcomes. Collaborative teams are able to use the shared and combined skills and knowledge of the whole team to solve problems, innovate, plan and create effectively. Collaborative teams are a great example of the saying ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ – that is, teams which are able to work together and utilise the best aspects of every team member are more likely to achieve success.
Collaborative teams which are comprised of people from diverse backgrounds are more likely to be able to succeed in innovation and creation-type tasks. The research has found that including diversity aspects in a team results in higher levels of innovation and creativity than increasing the skills and knowledge of a less diverse team. In a recent study, data was analysed to see how well a multicultural team, comprised of members who did not share a common cultural background, were able to complete a creative business design task. The research found that having team members from diverse backgrounds had a positive effect on the creative solutions that were found to solve the problem.
…multiculturals can enable teams to capitalise on the strengths of cultural diversity to generate creative outcomes.Jang, Sujin (2017)
Professional relationships
Professional relationships are those which exist external to the workplace itself, such as with colleagues in a similar position in another agency, or with members of a training organisation or peak or advisory body. Professional relationships can be recognised because they include:
Cultural competence
Cultural competence is an area of skill development where there is a strong focus on learning about the skills and knowledge required to work effectively across teams and groups. Cultural competence training should be seen as an essential rather than a ‘nice to know’ aspect of doing business in New Zealand. As a strongly multicultural country, the ability to engage positively and to see great value in diverse teams is important.
Cultural competence must be role modelled and valued at the leadership level, as this is where the unspoken cultural code of the organisation is set. Many of the behaviours, ways of working and codes of acceptance are established by the leadership team, and then followed through the levels and layers of the workplace. If a leader demonstrates clearly that they embrace diversity and place great importance on building strong teams which can capitalise on the various skills and knowledge of their members, then this will follow through the workplace.
