Question

This week we will address the issues involved in cultural competency and diversity. The focus of affirmative action, codified in Civil Rights legislation over forty years ago, was to correct discrimination by requiring organizations filling positions to search for and consider for hiring candidates with diverse racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. This approach assumed that diversity would over time be assimilated, and there was no recognition then that diversity itself was a valuable asset. As the workplace experienced an influx of diversity, organizations soon realized that the fresh perspectives, differing backgrounds, and alternative skills brought by diverse employees had a bottom line benefit for their businesses—a value added. The focus of employers in this area has now been to equip themselves with tools for managing the new diversity they have sought.

The process of achieving organizational cross-cultural competence is not a short-term commitment or an “add-on” politically correct exercise that begins and ends with several training sessions per year. To become culturally adept both personally and organizationally, requires a well-planned and sustained integrated multicultural approach.

That being said, what are some components of a culturally diverse healthcare organization? For example, there needs to be a genuine commitment to diversity starting from the highest levels of an organization, but what are some other ways an organization can truly appreciate and embrace diversity? And in embracing diversity, what are some roadblocks an organization may come across?

Answer 1

Some of the components of a culturally diverse healthcare organization are-

                - Trainings for enhancing cultural completeness for providers to change/increase their attitudes towards diversity.

                - Development of human resources such as promoting the ethnic diversity of the health care providers.

                - Integrating interpreting services for both health care personnel and the patients as the culturally diverse people require different language services.

                - Emphasis on organization policies and rules to accept culturally diverse workforce without any form of discrimination.

                - Community health care workers to act as liaison between the healthcare organization and the patients to educate patients about acceptance of cultural diversity.

The roadblocks that an organization might come across to accept cultural diversity in the healthcare organization are-

                - Communication barriers- Language and cultural perspectives differ for different cultures. This might result in lack of team work and lowers morale of the employees.

                - Gender equality- differs in different cultures which might create conflict in the workplace.

                - Cultural differences- is a major diversity issue in the workplace. Different cultural perspectives for different employees results in conflicts, misunderstandings and communication barriers in the workplace.

                - Acceptance of cultural differences- Resistance to accept the different cultural and ethnic values would arise in a culturally diverse workplace.

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