Numerous cultures as they exist, embrace diverse perspectives on professional aspects such as teamwork, respect for authority, time management, and responsibility. Culturally diverse workforces reflect different staff values, traditions and norms which ultimately affect the way an organization thinks, behaves and makes judgments. Cultural diversity greatly influences time-consciousness and thus, has an impact both on schedules and on deadlines. The cultural diversity of a workforce causes conflicting attitudes among co-workers, therefore, creating barriers to the creation of workable professional relationships. These barriers must be eliminated whenever they exist in order for an organization to run in an efficient, harmonized manner. Cultural competence enables effective job performance. It allows for workers to interact freely amongst themselves with little regard to their differences in terms of cultural background. This paper discusses steps that Human Resource managers take to determine organizational culture, strong and weak cultures found within healthcare organizations and the multiple ways through which the ideal HR could develop and maintain a strong organizational culture.
There are various measures that the HR manager could engage in order to determine appropriate organizational culture. First, the HR manager has to determine the strategies, mission, and vision of the organization. An organization’s underlying culture usually is defined by its strategies in relation to its competitiveness, and to its financial strengths. Mission and vision statements show set an organization apart within the larger framework, which is the industry in which it operates, by defining for it clear goals and objectives. In turn, this also defines the competitive culture within an organization. Next, the HR manager ought to formulate clear job descriptions. There has to be motivation to doing assigned work. Job descriptions drive industry and encourage a culture of accountability within the workforce. Workplace motivational frameworks incentivize cooperation, flexibility, and overall organizational performance. The managerial fit is another step that the HR manager takes to determine organizational culture. Difficult working relationships pitting managers against their subordinates lead to organizational underperformance (Schein, 2010).When workers get along with their superiors, they work more effectively, ensuring efficient production. Decision-making approaches facilitate the establishment of organizational culture by the HR. How decisions get to be made within an organization, whether small or big, clearly highlights of the organization’s culture (Schein, 2010).
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Healthcare facilities have both strong and weak aspects attributable to their organizational cultures. These cultures are developed either organically or deliberately by consistent action and careful planning. Strong healthcare organizational cultures demand their clear understanding and careful management in order that they may promote organizational effectiveness. These cultures include respect for co-workers and patients, vibrant teamwork, professional accountability, interactions built on trust and integrity and adaptability to changes in terms of technology. There has to be effective communication within healthcare institutions so as to enhance the accuracy of medical operations. However, some healthcare organizations have weak cultures where poor decision-making processes are prevalent alongside unclearly defined purposes, lack of employee engagement and isolation of workers. These weak cultures make it difficult for employees to work as a team, therefore, reduces their efficiency. Healthcare sector is critical as it deals with human lives; hence strong cultures should be embraced (Driskill & Brenton, 2011).
HR managers can develop and maintain strong organizational cultures in multiple ways. A HR manager might choose to develop a strong organizational culture by gathering feedback from employees in order establish know how well they align with the current organizational culture. This alignment could be attained through defining desired attributes and evaluating them through an employee survey. Effective communication is central to the creation of an enabling workplace environment, where staff enjoy quality interactions. Encouraging cross-cultural team building within an organization, betters job performance, and benefits team members from diverse cultural interactions (Kotter, 2008). A HR manager should encourage cooperation among workers and with other teams. The HR manager could also develop a common perception on time that clearly defines working hours to avoid the conflict that may be due from the diverse cultural understandings of time. Cultures differ in the way that they balance work and family time, in their perceptions of overtime and of deadlines. The HR should ensure that these aspects are clearly defined. A common organizational calendar ought to be developed by the HR manager so as to maintain strong organizational culture. Different cultures have their calendars that have different days of holidays. For example, Muslims worship on Friday and Eastern Orthodox Christians and Western Christians celebrate Christmas on different days. These holiday variations affect overall job performances. With a common organizational calendar, the workers can work together without observing their cultural differences (Kotter, 2008).
Cultural competence enables workers within an organization to interact effectively, which enhances productivity. The effectiveness of employee interactions highly depends on the level of their awareness of diverse cultural worldviews, tolerance to this cultural diversity and knowledge and understanding of other cultural practices. Development of cultural competence makes workers more able to work with diverse cultural beliefs and schedules, communicate with and understand people from other cultures. An organization with strong culture allows workers to work in a cooperative manner hence increasing organizational productivity. Weak organizational cultures hinder the organization from achieving its set goals and objectives. HR manager should ensure the establishment of a common organizational culture to prevent conflicts that are caused by cultural diversities. There have to be clear and understandable strategies that the employees can embrace to work efficiently and effectively. The workers should embrace good cultural practices such as teamwork and employee involvement.
References
Driskill, G. W., & Brenton, A. L. (2011). Organizational culture in action: A cultural analysis workbook . Thousand Oaks, Calif: SAGE.
Kotter, J. P. (2008). Corporate culture and performance . Simon and Schuster.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.
