Adapted from Injury Prevention & Cost Control Alert.

The workplace has never been so diverse in terms of age, race, ethnicity and culture, and that means mangers and executives are more challenged than ever to embrace this growing diversity – and still get results.

Overcoming language barriers is the first obvious challenge, but that’s only the beginning. It’s important to recognize the expanse of cultural differences, too, and how those differences impact work.

For instance, different cultures can have very different approaches to essential workplace issues like time management, respect for authority, teamwork, responsibility and even safety.

Different cultures also have conflicting interpretations of transparency, openness and ethics. Some are more reluctant to communicate, or to give and receive feedback. Obviously when customers, clients or co-workers operate on differing belief systems with conflicting attitudes, it creates barriers to success.

These barriers need to be addressed before an organization can run efficiently.  That responsibility falls to leadership to ensure that every worker feels valued—and that people’s needs are being address.

Here are two real-life examples as it relates to workplace safety.

Fatalism, the idea that events are inevitable and can’t be influenced by human action, is common in some Latin American cultures. This mindset presents a challenge for managers trying to promote safe work habits among Hispanic workers who think they’re pre-destined to get hurt – or not – regardless of their habits.

Other safety managers report some Asians are less likely to speak up about hazards because of cultural upbringings that suggest only troublemakers do that.

To begin addressing this issue:

• Provide mentors cross culturally. This will help senior leadership relate to and understand people of other cultures as well as provide them with an experienced guide. Simply assigning a mentor is not enough; the mentoring relationship must be active. Senior leaders are not always comfortable with mentoring and may lack mentoring skills and motivation. Provide training to both mentors and mentees and institute a regular process for monitoring their progress.
• Hold leadership accountable for harnessing diversity and creating cultural awareness. In the world of organizations, what gets measured gets done. Build these systems into a performance metric and regularly review the results.

• Keep communication ongoing. Managers must be willing to continually intervene and follow up to reinforce positive actions and behaviors.