CC BY
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Mariam Mohamed Askar Alnaqbi, MBA Student, University of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates
Fermin G. Castillo, Jr. (Post-Doc), Associate Professor, MBA Program University of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates E-mail: [email protected]
MULTI CULTURAL DIVERSITY AT NATIONAL HOSPITAL: IS TEAMWORK POSSIBLE?
Abstract: Cultural diversity at workplace is an emerging trend and this has significant impact on the performance of any business organization. With the change in the organizational behaviors there is a need for different knowledge, skills and attitudes in managing business challenges. Due to the changing demands of professionals across organization, multicultural diversity remains to be a challenging task for administrators. As diversity brings many advantages for an organization such as efficiency, better employee productively and organizational performance, at the same time managing cultural diversity has become the major issue for many organizations. We have to weight and balance its efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace.
Keywords: diversity, multicultural, teamwork, organizational behavior, workforce.
1. Introduction
Diversity refers to the presence of people belongs to different cultures in an organization. These people belongs to different backgrounds, religions, age, race and gender. As the trend of globalization is increasing and technology is getting advance, organizations are hiring employee from diverse regions around the world. These employee have different traits and abilities according to the culture, values and life styles. Due to increased diversity the organizations are getting many benefits. Diversity of workforce is now a new trend in organization culture. Those organizations who are operation globally are promoting diversity of workforce in the organization. In the past the organizations believed in hiring the employees from the similar culture and people in an organization worked individually. Every person was liable for his personal specific task. But as the trend are changed so, now the organizations are making their process fast and operations efficient. That is why now most of the organizations are heavily relaying on the effective team building. Team work is help-
ing the organization to get competitive advantage in this highly competitive business environment. Now day's organizations are working in different countries and without team work no organization can work effectively. But hiring diverse workforce and working in teams is not an easy task. Although diversity and team work bring many benefits in the organizations but there are many challenges faced by organizations to manage teams with diversity. Here in this paper the concept of diversity and team management are discussed in details in context of NATIONAL hospital.
2. The National Hospital: In Focus
The NATIONAL hospital is a UAE based hospital founded on 17 December 1979. The hospital is one of the oldest and best hospital in UAE and awarded with 2 success awards by ministry of health. The ministry of health took over the charge of management at NATIONAL hospital. The hospital provides state of art diagnostic and therapeutic facilities [1]. The hospital has well trained doctors and nurses. The University of the UAE choose
this hospital as its training center for the students of health and management. This hospital is also the center for all the referred patients of the country and the people from other countries as well. Hospital is providing the best services to its patients. The world class medical services and facilities are provided in this hospital under the supervision of experienced doctors. These doctors trains the student of different universities in different departments in the best way. The hospital is owned and operated by Abu Dhabi health Services Company. In the year 2006, john Hopkins international hospital took charge of the management at NATIONAL hospital. This new management selects half of the committee members and other are selected locally. Currently there are more than 3300 employees. This huge work force is blend of diverse employees who belongs to different cultures and backgrounds [1]. Mission
To provide a band of high quality health and care services which meets the needs and expectations of people in the UAE and surrounding gulf countries. Vision
The NATIONAL hospital believes in treating all the employees, patients and visitors all stakeholder with respect, equality and dignity guided by the law of UAE. Values
To provide high quality affordable health care and medical services in a friendly environment with assurance of full safety and care that meets the standards of excellent health service. Guiding principles:
• Hospital treat our patients like our family members;
• Hospital embraces cultural diversity;
• Hospital is trusted hones and ethical in all its dealing;
• The hospital promotes the team work;
• The hospital believes in continuous improvement of all its activities;
• The NATIONAL hospital strive for happy working environment with respect and mutual trust;
• The hospital encourages professional development and innovation through continuous learning process;
• The NATIONAL hospital is a good corporate citizen;
• The hospital provides efficient health care to bring value for its internal and external customers [1].
Organization structure
The NATIONAL hospital is one of the oldest and biggest hospital of the country. The hospital follows the departmental structure and each department has its heads. All the staff and other employees are reporting to their department heads. This structure is very simple and it defines how the task are designed, allocated, coordinated and supervised to achieve the organizational goals. This structure is also considered as glass perspective in which employees view their organization and its environment. Under this structure each department is designed according to its functions such as finance, marketing and operations department. So, in the NATIONAL hospital there are different departments because there is diversity of functions in this hospital. Each task for each employee of the department designed according to the function of that specific department. But each goal of task is linked to the mission of the organization that is to provide the quality health care services to all its patients.
NATIONAL Hospital management style At the NATIONAL Hospital there is flexible management style. But mostly the management has democratic style. This style is sometimes very time consuming and affects the productivity of the organization. But the hospital empowers its employees to take part in decisions making and improvement of the quality in all operations. There is very active and fast communication among the management and the staff of hospital which makes every operation perfect. There is free flow of communication so the employees and the managers can talk without any fear at any issue. This also bring the creativity in
organization which helps to achieve and sustain the competitive advantage.
3. Issues and Discussion: NATIONAL Hospital
The NATIONAL hospital is one of the best hospital in the UAE. But after the interviews with some employees and patients of hospital author has found that there are many problems related to culture diversity existing in the hospital [2]. Such as the doctors said that they found it difficult to communicate with local employees and member of management. The trainees from the university who are the future doctors and other professionals such as accountants answered that foreign employee does not cooperate with local employees. They does not want to train them just because they feel insecure that if they train them their value will be decreased. The local employee complaint that foreign culture is promoted in the organization as compare to the Arab culture. Some foreign employees' complaint that policies for the local employees are more flexible as compare to them. While some local employees who belongs to middle level positions said that management is giving privilege to the foreign nationals. Many of the employees and trainees reported that when it comes to work in the teams then it is very difficult to understand the perspective of diverse members.
Benefits of diversity
When it comes to the benefits gained from the diversity of work force in an organization then there are many benefits that are discussed in this report. Due to so many advantages of diversity most of the organizations are now hiring the diverse talent. The NATIONAL hospital has also the diverse and most efficient work force hired to ensure the high level of service delivery according to the quality standards of the health care systems.
Increased productivity
When there is divers talent found in a n organization there the productivity of that organization increases because that specific organization have the best blend ofhighly talented employees with different talents [3] All the employee who belongs to diverse
academic and institutional background will definitely have the diverse skill set which can be used to better execute the operation of the organization. The increased employee performance and organizational productivity will help to get the competitive advantage.
Creativity
When an organization hires the diverse employees with different mid set, abilities and skills they increase the level of creativity in the organization. in the service sector the element of creativity is essential, when people of different culture interacts ad share their views then new ideas and thinking is exchanged among them. Creativity is considered as the mother of new inventions or to bring the innovation in the existing procedures of the organization. So, the diverse workforce of the NATIONAL hospital bring many new changes in the organization in a creative way to execute the service. The diversity of the work force also improves problem solving skills of the employees. The solution of the problems is found in more quick way because each employee has his different perspective toward an issue.
Broad service/product range
Due to diversity there is diverse skill is hired in an organization, this diversity of skills helps an organization to offer a broader range of products. Such as the NATIONAL hospital offering all the health care related services to its customers just because of diverse work force. This diversity of the services and products helps an organization to increase the market share and to compete in the better way. Due to globalization and increasing customer demands it is very difficult for an organization to maintain the position in the market. That is why now most of the organizations are hiring diverse employees so they will bring new ideas and innovation their firm.
Attract and retain the talent
Sometimes diversity helps the organizations to attract the new talent and to retaining the old talent as well. But this happens only when the organization adopts diversity properly with due care. When the diversity is taken as positive and useful power then
the organization find it very easy to get the competitive advantage. The NATIONAL Hospital is one of the very famous organization in the UAE, many foreign qualified employees and national graduates are attracted to get job in this organization. And organization try to provide excellent environment to it employees so they are loyal to the organization no matter they belongs to which nationality or culture. In the diversity to retain the work force the rule of equality and respect is necessary and these rules are well implemented at the chosen organization.
Challenges of diversity faced by NATIONAL Hospital
As stated above that the NATIONAL hospital is one of the best and oldest hospital of the UAE so, there are huge number of employees. The hospital is famous for its high quality services and excellent operations, all this is possible due to its highly trained and qualified staff. Most of the staff member in hospital belongs to the foreign companies which creates huge difference in the employees for their skills, cultures, and abilities [4]. So this is very difficult for any organization to manage the diversity. There are many organizations found in the literature who embraced diversity in the organization but fail to achieve their goals. Many organizations faced loss and low level of productivity due to employee diversity. Here are some of the challenges caused sue to employee diversity are explained in context of NATIONAL hospital.
Communication challenges
Communication is the life blood of any organization either it's a small or a multinational organization. But in the diversity of work force there are different employees who not only belongs to different countries, cultures and backgrounds but they speak and understand different languages as well. In the UAE there are people who came for employment and belongs to different nationalities. National language of the UAE is Arabic and all the nationals of the country widely speak and understands this language. Whereas, there are many people who speaks and understands different other languages such as hind,
Bengali, Urdu, English and many others. Most of the UAE residents are foreigners [5]. In the organizations and universities the documentation language is English. So in the NATIONAL hospital there are most of the doctors and nursing staff are foreigners and most of them speaks and understand only English but the patients are mostly Arabic speakers and they create a communication gap between hospital staff and patients. Not only there is the issue of communication gap among doctors and patients but this gap can affect the relationship of managers and employees. As stated above that half of the committee are international and half are locals of the UAE. So this blend of the members in the hospital can create the issue of communication. Most of the trainee students of the UAE university are UAE nationals and their mother tongue is Arabic, when they have communicate with British or other qualified doctors then there are communication barriers arises.
Resistance to change
When an organization employs diversity then there are many changes that come with this. When people of diffident background and cultures interacts with each other then there are many new things enters in an organizational culture which affects the working style and other procedures of the business. Sometimes employees create trouble to accept the change and they become less productive. There are many cases in which it can be easily seen that changes occurred due to diversity creates employee resistance. So at the NATIONAL hospital diversity will bring the change in values, norms and trends of the management. the people of UAE are very much attached to their culture and traditions but when the people of other cultures will come in the organization then definitely work practices and other procedures will be changed and the technology will also be changed this will create trouble by all the employees to cope with this new change.
Benefits of team work
Team work has many benefits for the organizations. As the operations of the organizations are
carried on large scale so, it is not an easy task for a single person to manage all the responsibilities. When organizations work in the teams all the team members involved in the task and they bring better results in operational efficiency of the business [7]. At NATIONAL hospital people works in groups to deliver the high quality medical service with better execution. As stated above that hospital has all the well trained and highly qualified staff, when all the highly skilled people works together on a task their performance is outstanding. Team work bring better problem solutions, it create a good relationship among the employees and manager, it also help to train the employees and it is the better way to focus at different tasks at same time.
Challenges of team work
Team work has many benefits but at the same time it is very difficult to manage the teams in an effective manner. At NATIONAL hospital manager has observed that team work is not bringing desired results. As the hospital has already well trained staff and has also the diverse workforce with latest skills and knowledge its teams should bring outstanding results. After the detailed research hospital found that in the team building there is need of trust and free flow of information. The task should be design in such a way that no one can hide the information and no one can take credit of others work [8]. In the team work it is found that people have their conflict of interest and sometimes team work negatively impact the performance of an organization. When the members of a team belongs to diverse cultures and background then these people does not understand perspective of each other. Sometimes the team leader is unable to engage all the member efficiently due to diversity of cultures and backgrounds. So there are many issues found by the author at this hospital regarding the team work.
So this analysis of the NATIONAL hospital is giving the clear picture of existing state and the also providing the insights for the future. This analysis evaluates that organization is in good condition but
as the trends are changing and if the issues are not resolved at right time this will lead to more problems at organization. The level of diversity and the standards of the employee recruitment is good at this hospital but the management is not capitalizing all the talent in better way. There is need of some changes in the policies and the strategies. In this report the author has discussed about the benefits of team work and the diversity for the organizations but at the NATIONAL hospital all the benefits are not gained from this concept of diversity.
4. Research Findings at NATIONAL Hospital
The research study found that there is no doubt about the high level of safety and quality of the services provided by the NATIONAL hospital but the element of cultural diversity is affecting the performance of organization. In the literature it is stated that cultural diversity if not managed carefully and ignored by the management then it can decrease the efficiency of the business. The author is absolutely agreed with this statement because at the NATIONAL hospital the teams are not managed carefully and employees are facing problems in understanding the other employees. For the effective team work it is necessary that all the employee understand each other and there are no stereotypes for any employee who belongs to a specific culture of ethnicity. Furthermore the author has also find that at the NATIONAL hospital there respect for all the people and policies of the hospital are made accurately but there is lack of supervision at the middle management layer which is responsible for the effective execution of the operations. The middle managers are not supporting the culture of diversity and they are creating resistance for the change. These manager are not cooperating with low level of management, and they are not giving opportunities to their trainee employees to actively participate. Lack of participation from all the employees' results in reduced organizational performance and later solution of problems. When the problems at any organization are resolved late this cause to loss of competitive
advantage and profitability of the business. The author has also found that there is lack of training and development opportunities given to the employees and the management is only focusing on the medical staff. The management of the NATIONAL hospital is not giving attention at the level of expertise for administration, promotion, logistic and finance department. The research also find out that to there to promote the culture of diversity at any organization the hiring process should be change. If the employees are not hired according to requirement of diversity then this will not work properly.
5. Conclusion
Cultural diversity is the most emerging issue for many organization in the world. After the rapid globalization due to increased technology people from different cultures, backgrounds and regions are working in organizations. When people from these diversities interacts with each other, then many benefits and hazards arises for an organizations. The NATIONAL hospital case is reflecting the issues and benefits created due to cultural diversity. This is one of the oldest and best hospital of the UAE, the management of the hospital is following department based structure in which each department for specialties is different from other. In the UAE there are people from different counties come for employment and tourism. The NATIONAL hospital has world class doctors and other nursing staff all the staff members are highly qualified. But in the workforce of the hospital people from different counties are found. Fifty person of the management committee members are foreigners and fifty percent are locals of the UAE. At NATIONAL hospital there is communication gap due to language difference between the local and foreign employees. The teams at the hospital are not working effectively due to cultural diversity. If the cultural diversity is use as a power tool by the management of the hospital then this will bring fruitful result for the hospital. The cultural diversity is the most common tool by the organizations to achieve their goals and objectives in shortest
time span. The management of the hospital should give heavy training to all its employees about the cultural diversity. The management should change its hiring procedures and should also upgrade the management information systems. This system will help to better communicate at all level of organization and to better manage the organizational sources.
6. Recommendation and suggestions for Improvement
As it obvious that nothing is perfect in this world and there is always a room for improvement. So here are some suggestions made for the NATIONAL hospital to improve its services and to overcome the issues discussed above. The management of the hospital should incorporate the diversity management program in the organizations. Under this program the employees will be aware from the concept of the diversity and the benefits of the diversity. This program will help to bring a positive change in the hospital. The management of the hospital should provide extensive training to its managers and other staff members about the different cultures and about the better dealing of people from diverse culture. The manager must have the skills to communicate effectively with the employees no matter to what culture they belong. Furthermore the managers should also know that teams should be make in such way that each ember have good relationship and trust. For the better team work the organization should change its task design and trainings should be given to manage the teams. For the better team management the manager should empower all the employees to make decisions, to share their thought without any fear and ideas of every team member should be respected.
The management of hospital should improve its financial system and should hire such new talent who know about the other accounting systems. The management should also give the job assurance to all its employees so they will be better able to train the junior employees without any fear of job loss. The management of hospital should bring consistency in
the employees of logistics department so there will be no more confusion in between finance and logistic department. The hiring process should be changed. This will save the cost of administration as well.
7. Future study and work
This case study opened the new lines for cultural diversity and temployee satisfaction for their job security. This study will be beneficial for the policy
makers in health care industry across UAE, this will also be good for the other people who are managing the hospital business in the world. The readers can get useful insights to improve their business performance after reading this case. This case will motivate the readers to brainstorm about the workplace issues and to find the root cause of these issues. There is always benefits of multicultural diversity in the workplace and it's a matter of how to put things down.
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