Different cultures and the job

Mike Maslanka · March 2002

The previous post on language issues got me thinking. What do you all see on how different cultures make your job more challenging? For instance,I have noticed that Latin women are less likely to complain about harassment because it is not part of their culture to complain,and Asian managers do not always tell employees they are not doing a good job because they believe they should know they are not meeting standards and act accordingly.You? Regards from Texas,Mike Maslanka,michaelmaslanka@akllp.com

jules2001 · March 2002

We have majority Vietnamese employees here. Some of our difficulties include the fact that in their culture, the male is the leader and is not be questioned. The Vietnamese supervisors will try to rate the men better, give better raises to men, and promote men first. Also, they will try to favor the Vietnamese over the other cultures (for overtime, etc) and when something happens (that is wrong) a non-Vietnamese will almost always get blamed first.
I also find that when I hire people who are not Vietnamese, their turnover is higher.
Always quite a challenge.

Gillian · March 2002

Yes, it is challenging. One thing to remember though, is that individuals within a culture act differently, just as we are individuals within our culture - we don't do everything the same. Education always helps. I found that when cultural differences were explained then behavior usually changes. In the area of sexual harassment, for example, explaining that our workplace laws are different and that the employer is in jeopardy for actions that may be OK within the other culture, would lead to modified behavior. I also found that SOME Latinas would be happy to complain about the macho behavior of SOME Latinos when they found out that they didn't have to put up with it in our workplaces. I think that education is the key with this group. I also think that my ability with the language gave me extra credibility and employees would listen. I have found the Japanese culture to be difficult,at least for me, but I know an HR person in a Japanese company who does very well. When I was a consultant I once recruited an HR manager for a client (a Japanese company) and was estatic to find someone who spoke Japanese. I was surprised to find that the Japanese execs were not as estatic and one who I had built a relationship with told me that "he would understand what we are talking about in our meetings".

Missy · March 2002

Gillian,

That sounds like my world. We are owned by a Taiwanese company and all of our executives are Taiwanese. Holding side conversations in Chinese during meetings is a frequent occurance. None of the rest of us have the slightest idea what they're talking about and they like it that way.

I makes for a very challenging environment!

Jessica · March 2002

I just want to say thank you for qualifying your response with "SOME." While it can be important, and helpful, to acknowledge cultural differences, it is so important that we are careful in how we acknowledge those differences in an effort to avoid stereotypes. Using the word "SOME" allows for the fact that there are individuals within large cultural groups.

It is tricky to move through these discussions smoothly, but it is so important that we take chances and get in there to make things work better for employees and employers.

Different cultures and the job

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