Diverse Culture Work Force in Hospitality industry

Leadership Skills HOSP 185 term Paper

Sheldon Yuan

HOSP 185, Section 2

Jean-Guy Robichaud

November 25, 2016

Introduction

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Nowadays, it is a common phenomenon that there is an increasing number of

people with diverse culture backgrounds working at different positions in Hospitality

industry. According to the research, there are a ton of workforces consist of different

culture groups in America. To be specific, according to Migration Information Source

(2004, as cited in Testa, 2007) reported that the number of foreign-born US residents

has steadily increased from 7.9% in 1990 to 12% in 2003 (Testa). Some people

consider that those people who hold different values, attitudes, and beliefs could be a

challenges to the front line managers to improve the employee’s performance, meet

guest’s satisfaction, and build the relationship with colleagues. The studies (Earley &

Gibson, 2002; Earley & Mosakoski, 2000; Franklin, 2007; Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale,

1999; Ravlin, Thomas, & Ilsev, 2000, as cited in Walker & Aritz, 2014) have shown

that moderately heterogeneous groups experiences significant communication

problems and do not reach their performance potential (Walker & Aritz).

Consequently, it is not hard to see that how to address the right solution and shift

managing way is necessary. However, there are also many individuals who hold the

view that multicultural workforce plays an important role in a hospitality industry. A

research shows that cultural differences can have both positive and negative impacts

on organizations. However undoubtedly, as the reporte from Day (2007, as cited in

Gong, 2008), which illustrated that these differences would not be considered as a

hazards but rather opportunities and benefits (e.g. innovation, competiveness, and

knowledge transfer; increased attraction to minority customers) if they can manage

well (Gong) In short, diverse workforce is beneficial to our field in weak of bring

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different feelings, thinking, and reacting. It is obvious that there are points in both

sides of argument. In the report, it will illustrate advantages and disadvantages to the

hospitality industry, and make a deep analysis of how to implicate leadership on this

circumstance.

Advantage of Diverse cultural workforce

Diverse cultural viewpoints from a multicultural workforce can provide creative

problem solving and solutions in customer service. Employees who are from different

cultural backgrounds could be more sensitive to the problems or challenges from a

customer who shares the same culture, and could respond with a more appropriate

perspective. Therefore, many benefits to a cross-cultural workforce can be found in

the hospitality industry and the following examples were identified in the literature.

Base on the studies, diverse cultural members can provide more information, novel

approaches, and richer perspectives on solving organizational and customer problems

(Korjala, 2012, as cited in Devine et al. 2007). Basically, people from various cultural

backgrounds, when working together can offer more innovative and creative solutions

and provide improved customer service (Korjala). Johansson (2007) further supports

Korjala (2012) by stating that a multicultural workforce contributes and stimulates

new business innovations. Based on the interpretation of the authors above, one could

say that a diverse cultural staff will have a different viewpoint of the world and will

offer different perspectives on opportunities and challenges found in industry.

Therefore, a diverse group of employees could come up with innovative ideas based

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on their cultural backgrounds and experiences. Companies can really profit from a

diverse group of employees, provided that the employer can understand and largely

take advantage of the employee’s different values and unique way of viewing the

world. According to Seymen’s (2006, as cited in Gong, 2008) report, when comparing

homogeneous employee groups, diversified employee groups show outstanding

performance in the long run and efficiently take responsibility to their duties. This

difference is partially encouraged by the increased creativity and novelty in

multicultural teams that come from the diverse perspectives, views and experiences of

their team members (Gong).

Therefore, a staff with diverse cultural backgrounds not only benefits relations with

external stakeholders such as customers, but also helps in creating a healthy internal

organizational culture.

On the other hand, if managed well, a diverse cultural workforce can increase

competitiveness in the working place. There is no shadow of doubt that hospitality

industry will always remain as a competitive environment. In order to survive, staff

are always required to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Consequently,

it is not hard to see that the competitive nature of the industry with a cross cultural

staff can promote and fuel a creative environment as reported by Belfry (1989, as

cited in Gong, 2008). One can draw the following conclusion. A diverse workforce is

beneficial to the hospitality industry as it will improve guest services, create

innovative and inspiring ideas and increase competiveness.

Disadvantage of multicultural workforce

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Through what has been illustrated above, it is obvious that diverse cultural

workforces are beneficial to the hospitality industry. However, there are various

opposite views as well. In the first place, it goes without saying that different cultures

can give rise to communication challenges in the workplace. Doubtlessly, those

communication barriers not only can cause negative influences on working efficiency,

but it can result in misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and damage interpersonal

relationships in working place. Based on the repot, written by Devine (cited in

Korjala, 2012) it shows that communication is a huge challenge for culturally diverse

organizations due to perceptual, culture, and language barriers (Challenges and

problems with cultural diversity para. 2). Moreover, Peterson (2004, as cited in

Korjala, 2012) wrote that Miscommunication is very likely to occur among diverse

organization members. Even if all the people around a table speak English, cultural

differences can create strong barriers to understanding (Korjala). Therefore, the

problems that are caused by culture can be seen a disaster to a company. Particularly,

those problems are more likely a snowball, which highly can contribute to array of

other relevant problems. Secondly, cultural gaps also can cause negatively influence

on mental health to the heterogeneous group. It is a common phenomenon that those

people with different cultural backgrounds could feel themselves cannot be absorbed

into a group. Eventually, there are increasing number of different mental illnesses

appeared, such as self-denial, self-disgust, and less confidence. This problem is

usually happened to the people who have to remove because of the job transfer.

Sevmen (2006, as cited in Gong, 2008) wrote for these people, effective

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communication helps them become more efficient in the work place, reduce their

emotional stress, and ultimately aid them to complete the cultural adjustment

successfully (Gong). Thirdly, the cultural gaps can cause negative impacts on

commitment and loyalty. Based on the article that wrote by Korjala, who reckons that

commitment usually connects to the cultural backgrounds group, and employees feel

loyalty to their original cultural background groups rather the whole organization

which has different cultural group (Korjala, 2012). There is not a shadow of doubt

that it is totally dangerous to the sense of competition and cooperation at working

place. In addition, the cultural gaps cause threatens to the unify of the group. As a

whole, the disadvantages of diverse cultural workforce is to cause communication

challenges, mental illness on the foreigner staff, and negative influences on

commitment and loyalty in the industry.

Implications to the Leadership

According to the both sides (advantages and disadvantages) as shown above, it is

obvious that the question of how to manage diverse cultural workforces well in the

industry is necessarily for front line managers, otherwise those cultural gaps could

cause stress and discomfort factors to a company. In this paragraph, it will introduce

some of approaches for this challenges. At the first place, the company with a

multicultural environment should provide a series of training programs to all

employees. Gong reported (2008) that diversity training and education are necessary

and essential to help companies in the industry to become competitive and successful

(Gong, 2008, as cited in Christensen, 1993). To be specific, the different type of

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cultural training can contribute to employees reducing misunderstandings to a larger

extent. It is a common phenomenon that there are a lot of people could view

foreigners with stereotypes, and it is the main factors of causing communication gap

at workplace. Hence, the training program play an important role of erasing theses

problems and improving the management at some points. Secondly, managers should

increase their managing styles, rather using only one managing way. Korjala wrote

(2012) that the mixture of culturally diverse workforce needs to be managed actively

by supervising, coordinating and directing (Korjala, 2012, as cited in Friday & Friday,

2003, p. 865). Specifically, because the cultural differences, the employees with

diverse cultural backgrounds has their own individual attitude, traits, thinking ways,

and behaviors. Thus, it causes different influences on the managing way. For example,

Walker & Artiz (2014) reckoned that in China, employees want their leaders to be

considerate and benevolent, adhere to the Confucian parental role (Walker & Artiz,

2014, as cited in Hui and Tan, 1996). Consequently, mangers should evaluate every

employee working for them, and figure out the most appropriate managing way for

the employees. Adopting the appropriate managing style not only can improve the

working efficiency, but it can enhance customer’s service quality as well. In brief, for

the more effective managing, managers should take advantage of training programs

for reducing the cultural differences, and adopting diverse appropriate managing

ways, rather using only one way.

Conclusion

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In conclusion, based on arguments offered above, the advantages of multicultural

workforce at working place is to enhance guest service quality, because those

employees are usually better at accommodating customers from their own cultural

background, with similar perspective. Secondly, they can coin some creative ideas

with their unique ways. Thirdly. They can create a competitive environment at

company, and maximize profitability. On the other hand, the disadvantages of the

multicultural workforce are to cause communication challenges, negative influence on

foreign staff’s mental health, and commitment and loyalty to the company. From the

managing effective angle, managers can implement training programs to employees

for reducing cultural gaps, then it can improve the management. Moreover, mangers

can utilize more different types of managing ways for insuring diverse cultural

workforces working efficient.

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Reference

Gong, Qi (Dec, 2008), Managing cultural diversity in Hospitality Industry. (Page 13,

Para 2 & Page 14, Para1 & page 16, Para 4 & Page 22, Para 1 & Page 17, Para 2)

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. Paper

480. Retrieved from: http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1510&context=thesesdissertations

Korjala, Veera, (2012), Cultural diversity in Hospitality Industry-how to improve

cultural diversity workforce, (Page 22, Para 2 & Page 24 Para 3 & Page 26 Para

3) TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES. Retrieved from:

https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/55331/Korjala_Veera.pdf

Testa, Mark (n.d). A deeper look at national culture and leadership in Hosptality

Industry. (Para. 5 of 1,1) San Diego State University. Retrieved from:

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhosman

Walker’, Robyn & Aritz’, Jolanta (2014), Leadership Styles in Multicultural Groups:

Americans and East Asians Working Together (para. 2, 3), International

Journal of Business Communication 2014, Vol. 51(1) 72–92

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