Psychology

The peoples viewpoint on cultural diversity  had undergone a massive change from  being a stagnant idea into a more efficient and a more competitive one. Workplace diversity is characterized by  the differences of the employees  working in a given company. Diversity, not only in gender, age,race, but also in culture especially in a work force is indeed one of the many  challenging problems that the management faces, and thus, it is their role to come up with effective strategies to cope with this dilemma.

Nowadays, many companies all over the globe had been successful in adapting cultural diversity on their system. They believe that the diversity brought about by the differences on their work group is more of an asset than a liability to their businesses. Workplace diversity for them helps improve organizational performance and brings balance into their works.

Companies which gained interest in workplace diversity and had found it to be an effective practice apply ways by which they are able to handle the negative aspects of this idea. Some of the methods that they carry out includes proper understanding of their employees beliefs and traditions.  They also showed patience in teaching their employees the things that they have to know in order to work properly and efficiently.

People who transferred to a different place with a different culture as well, find it hard to cope up with the changes that they encountered at first. These may be due to the  huge differences of the practices and beliefs of the other people to whom they are interacting with.  Transition into another culture is a slow process at best and one requiring adaptation by both parties. New comers are interlopers in an established social scene and when they seek the company of others like themselves, host country prejudices are fueled by fears of loss of cultural and employment.

For instance,the case of Amber, a 35-year old Nigerian who immigrated to USA and after some time was able to finished her law studies and made some changes on herself such as adapting a new, American name and even changing her hair color. She then seek for a professional help because of her feeling of loneliness and of rejection from her Nigerian friends. She also feels that her law associates do not want to mingle with her because of her race.  Amber is facing developmental identity conflicts which hinder her growth as an individual. Given the fact that she is struggling to adapt to the changes in her new environment, she may lack an emotional connection among her colleagues and friends. Amber may have a high rate of intellectual intelligence but lacks something that we call emotional intelligence which refers to the ability to be aware of, name and manage individual experience of emotions, this includes the way a person deals with both self and others in social , professional and social interactions. Her attention may have been focused more on her work that she often forget about personal interactions with them.

Another conflict that Amber may have been facing is the concept of cultural leadership among the people around her. Cultural leadership in a way, labels a specific culture or race as superior or inferior relative to the other. Other people might have been thinking that Amber, though was able to finished her studies, still is incapable of performing tasks or is not credible enough because she came from an inferior race.

Aside from the first two conflicts, Amber might  also be lacking confidence in projecting herself to others because if she have this confidence already, there is no reason for her to be dressing up or changing her name to look like an American. Confidence play a vital role in a persons development and looking at Ambers situation, gaining enough confidence to interact with other people is what will probably help her adapt easier  into this new environment of hers.

As much as Amber wants to interact to the people on her new environment,    judgments on where she came from by these people make it harder for her to attach herself to them. The reason why these people do not want a foreign person to be included on their company is because they see her as a threat rather than a new acquaintance. As what was said, the adaptation process is a two-way process between  new comers and people already established in a society. And it only needs acceptance on both parties for them to be able to work harmoniously.