Industrial and Commercial Training

Motivating a multicultural workforce

Jinsoo Terry

Article information:

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 23:20 24 August 2014 (PT)

To cite this document:

Jinsoo Terry, (2007),"Motivating a multicultural workforce", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 39 Iss 1 pp. 59 - 64
Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00197850710721417
Downloaded on: 24 August 2014, At: 23:20 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 0 other documents.
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 4912 times since 2007*
Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by 543666 []

For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service
information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit
www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.

About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com

Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than
290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional
customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

Motivating a multicultural workforce

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 23:20 24 August 2014 (PT)

Jinsoo Terry

Jinsoo Terry is Founder and

CEO of Advanced Global
Connections, San
Francisco, CA, USA.

Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to show the value of a direct handling of multicultural issues and some of the
details of how to go about motivating a multicultural workforce.
Design/methodology/approach Completely empirical, all based on hard-won experience in several
companies although only one is shown here.
Findings The potential gain from properly addressing multicultural issues is huge.
Research limitations/implications This paper provides an empirical, hands-on, front line view of the
multicultural situation, not an academic or theoretical view. The information has been tested and works.
Originality/value This paper presents information not otherwise available due to the personal,
hands-on experience in this subject by this author.
Keywords Multicultural management, Trust, Employee productivity, Motivation (psychology)
Paper type Case study

Case study motivating and training a multicultural workforce

Introduction
As industry goes more global and the world market place and workforce becomes more
international, companies in general and workforces in particular in Western countries are
becoming increasingly multicultural in composition. In English speaking countries, the
percentages of employees for whom English is a second language are on the rise. The
differences between the cultures that make up these workforces present new issues but,
more importantly, new opportunities.
It is definitely a case of the glass being half full here. How much competitive advantage can
you derive from the simple fact of hiring, training, educating and fully developing employees
of different cultures with English as a second language?
The answer is in the following case study which is quite representative.
Background on the company
This case study is about a US based company founded by an English woman who decided
to quit her secretary job in the UK and follow in the footsteps of the Gold Rush crowd, to make
her fortune in San Francisco. She began peddling garments she made to tourists on Pier 39
in the heart of San Franciscos tourist area and within a few years, with the help of a partner
from the UK who took care of the finances while she handled the rest, her operation had
grown to a $4 million company.
The workforce consisted of some 35 employees, including close to 20 Asians from Hong
Kong, China, Vietnam, Japan, Laos, Korea and the Philippines. There were also some

DOI 10.1108/00197850710721417

VOL. 39 NO. 1 2007, pp. 59-64, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0019-7858

INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING

PAGE 59

Hispanics. The rest of the workforce was made up of Caucasian Americans and a few
African Americans. Quite a mix but not unusual, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Management consisted of a British CEO and CFO and otherwise Caucasian Americans and
one Japanese American (more American than Japanese).
State of company with regard to multicultural issues
Were there cultural issues? Management did not think so. The workforce was smiling and not
complaining and this, for those managers, meant they were happy.

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 23:20 24 August 2014 (PT)

However, when a new production manager joined the company who was wiser about
multicultural issues she noticed what everyone else had failed to: the multicultural workforce
was not communicating with management and they were not contributing anything near their
potential to the company. There was a definite lack of trust in both directions between
management and the workforce and there is nothing like lack of trust to break down
teamwork.
The result was a large number of employees operating at far less than full capacity. They
were doing the minimum required to make sure they would not lose their jobs. Management
in the company really had no idea just how valuable some of these employees were. They
had not investigated their backgrounds from before coming to the USA, found out what
degrees they held, how many people they had supervised in their previous jobs and so on.
Their lives, as far as these managers were concerned, began with their arrival in the USA.
The lack of understanding was quite marked.
The way the operations manager operated is a good example of the overall situation that
existed between management and the workforce at this company. He was a well-educated,
personable, hard-working all-American Caucasian, young MBA and he should have been a
great success. However, he was not well-versed in cultural differences and had probably
never traveled outside the USA. American culture and American business culture were the
cultures he knew and was familiar with.
He also was not aware of the extreme communication difficulties that can exist when English
is not your native language and you do not speak it very well or understand it very well. When
that is coupled with an unwillingness to bring anything up that might be any kind of issue for
fear of losing your job plus ingrained cultural training that you must not speak up, you must
respect your seniors and so on, the scene was set for no communication, no trust and limited
productivity.
So even though he would smile at the Chinese, Mexican, Vietnamese and other workers and
was quite friendly, he would speak to them very fast in MBA language that they did not
understand and they were thus not able to communicate with him. So they did not trust him or
respect him as a leader. Consequently they did not put their all into their work. They did not
originate any communication or take initiative in matters that they were well qualified to deal
with.
He was eventually fired for not accomplishing the goals set for his area.
Change in management and approach to these issues
The Korean manager who took over from the operations manager had already been in the
company and actually reported directly to him. She had been over manufacturing. She did
understand multicultural issues because she had experienced them all as an immigrant to
the USA herself.

. . . there is nothing like lack of trust to break down

teamwork.

PAGE 60 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING VOL. 39 NO. 1 2007

From that point the company started to take off in leaps and bounds. When he left, she was in
a position to make important changes in the way the workforce was run, particularly with
regard to multicultural issues.

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 23:20 24 August 2014 (PT)

Specific actions taken

Breaking down the communication barriers. One of the first points for the new manager to
address was the lack of communication that existed between management and the
multicultural workforce. She noticed that the tendency of the American managers (and the
English execs) was to go into their offices and close the door and generally separate
themselves off from the people who were producing the companys products. So she had
her desk moved onto the factory floor and she took her lunch breaks with the workforce and
shared their food. She started to break down the barriers that had been built up. She talked
to them about their personal lives, their families, their ambitions, their past before they came
to America. She asked them if they needed help from the company and encouraged them to
bring their problems to work and she would get them what help they needed. She found out if
they were taking steps to improve their English or other skills that could help them at work.
They began to trust her and to open up. They also began to contribute their ideas. And they
started to have fun at work. These were all new things.
Meetings. The next key factor was introducing a daily meeting. This was led by the
production manager and brought together the supervisors over the different phases of
production, about 9 in total. The meetings occurred every morning at 9 oclock without fail.
Work started at 8 so the supervisors had an hour to get their areas under control and into
production for the day.
Key points taken up at these meetings included the personal lives of the supervisors (a
happiness check), production issues for the day, particularly any that had to be thrashed
out between departments, numbers and quotas for the week, month and year. There was
also a training element in every meeting. The manager would choose some relevant book on
factors that were important such as positive thinking, goal setting, how to communicate and
so on. Each day it would be someone elses turn to read from the book. Then they would
discuss what they read. Often the result would not only be application in the work place but
the individuals would want to take the book home to share with their family.
These daily meetings were key to establishing communication, building trust and creating a
team. They might not have been so important in a company that did not have the cultural
diversity that this one had.
Management of a multicultural workforce
There are certain ways of approaching a multicultural workforce and employees who have
English as a second language which are important to know.
Communication. There are barriers to communication inherent in such a set-up which must
be overcome if you want to get the most out of your employees. The barriers arise from
language difficulties and from cultural differences in communication. Whereas in America
and in many European countries communication is direct and forthright and this is
encouraged, the same is not true in certain Asian countries where, for example, you would
never tell your boss that you thought she had made a mistake or was wrong as it would result
in loss of face for the manager.
A manager over a multicultural workforce has to be aware of these communication barriers
and work actively to overcome them constantly.
Trust. Trust is a two-way street. The basic attitude of a multicultural workforce is often one of
distrust of management and also a feeling that one is not trusted. This is also due to
language and cultural differences. It is also something that needs to be dealt with head on.
For some cultures any question as to whether they did something correctly or an examination
of their actions means that they are not trusted. One has to be aware of this kind of cultural
training.

VOL. 39 NO. 1 2007 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING PAGE 61

 . . . she had her desk moved onto the factory floor and she
took her lunch breaks with the workforce and shared their
food.

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 23:20 24 August 2014 (PT)

In the company in question the production manager worked hard to build trust in the
employees for her and management and to show the individuals in the workforce that they
were trusted. It took a concerted effort to overcome the lack of trust but the result was a great
improvement in teamwork which showed up dramatically in the bottom line.
Leadership. Different cultures have different ideas about leadership. In many countries
leaders are leaders simply due to seniority in the company and age. This is not the case in,
for example, an Anglo-American work environment where seniority tends to be based on
competence and actual production demonstrated.
It is important for a manager to make it clear that promotion occurs based on competence,
not necessarily seniority or longevity. Otherwise employees from other cultures might feel
that they are being mistreated.
It is also important for a leader of a multicultural workforce to be aware of how different
cultures view leadership and what sort of qualities and factors engender respect and which
do not.
Decision making. Again, this is an issue with a multicultural workforce. The attitude among
the workforce is often that the managers are responsible and they will make the decisions
and the English-as-a-second-language employee is just a worker and not a decision maker.
It takes constant encouragement and persuasion to get such employees to start making the
necessary decisions in their areas of responsibility. Once they do, the whole scene improves
dramatically, of course.
At this company, for example, there was a Asian woman who had an engineering degree in
her own country and was very capable. Yet she was doing the job of a worker because she
did not feel capable of taking more responsibility. With a lot of encouragement she was
persuaded to take on an assistant manager position and was a great success.

Training a key factor in success

Training is vital in any organization no matter what the cultural composition of the workforce.
However, in the case of a multicultural workforce and a high percentage of employees for
whom English is a second language, it becomes absolutely crucial.
This company instituted many training programs in order to achieve the success that it did
with its multicultural workforce.
The meetings described above were a key factor but they were limited to the supervisors
only. There needed to be training for the entire workforce.
Communication training was very important. One step taken to educate the entire workforce
in communication was a monthly meeting which included all the executives and employees.
Here the executives and the employees were asked to talk about their background, their
cultural differences and experiences in their country in front of the whole group. It was a
chance for managers, senior executives and all the workforce to get to know each other and
understand each other better and it was very effective in breaking down communication and
cultural barriers that existed. The CEO would talk about how things were done in Britain, the
Mexican employees would tell about the ways of their country and so on.

PAGE 62 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING VOL. 39 NO. 1 2007

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 23:20 24 August 2014 (PT)

The company identified a need to upgrade computer skills, particularly among the employees
of other cultures. Here again language was a problem. Rather than a mass approach of now
everyone must do computer training, those who really needed to upgrade their skills and
what specific skills they needed to upgrade were pinpointed and then trainers were brought in
who could train them in their own language. This worked very well and had the additional
benefit of making those employees feel valued enough by the company to go to these lengths,
which in turn raised the trust level. If trainers were not available who spoke a particular
language then ESL trainers were used who could communicate adequately to people with
little English and the same objective was accomplished.
There was a situation with some of the non-US employees where their English pronunciation
was so poor that they could not easily make themselves understood. This led, in some
instances to apparently unresolvable conflicts within the workforce and between managers
and employees. The answer was to bring in accent correction coaches who worked with
groups of three or four employees at a time, maybe one or two hours a week during regular
work hours to help them with their English pronunciation. This was very effective and had the
added benefit that employees who spoke English well were more valuable to the company
as they could interface better with English speaking people outside the company:
customers, suppliers and so on.
Cultural training was also part of the overall picture. A Library Committee was established.
Members of the committee would be paid to spend time reading books about cultural
differences and then summarizing them. These summaries were given to the non-US
employees to read so that they could gain an understanding of the cultural differences they
were up against. These summaries would cover simple issues such as what to say in the
case of a conflict; how to ask specific questions about particular subjects. It was a bit like
giving a foreigner a phrase book that teaches them enough about a country and its language
and culture to get by. This was all dealt with internally. The manager over production would
herself help the non-US employees to understand the principles and the American way of
going about things. This built their confidence in dealing with situations that might otherwise
have been difficult and helped weld them into a team.
The company also had a librarian who summarized personal empowerment books (popular
books on self-improvement, motivation and related subjects). These summaries would then
be given to the employees to read. They were written in simple enough English so that those
who would not be able to understand the original book, would be able to grasp the summary
and apply the principles.
A Scrapbook Committee was also established and given the task of maintaining a scrap
book for the company which included any major occurrences, company memos of general
interest and other events and occurrences, which the employees could read. This helped
them keep up with what was going on in the company as a whole so that they were well
informed and felt they were part of the team.
Every Thursday for half an hour after 5 oclock any of the employees could stay behind and
talk to the CEO one-on-one, discuss a raise or promotion or company policy. This helped the
employees feel comfortable and know that they had a way to communicate directly to senior
management.
Community leaders were brought in regularly as guest speakers. These might be Asian,
Hispanic or African American community leaders and they would talk and answer questions.

. . . A manager over a multicultural workforce has to be aware

of these communication barriers and work actively to
overcome them constantly.

VOL. 39 NO. 1 2007 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING PAGE 63

This raised the general sense of community within the company itself and helped the
members of various cultures understand each other, which in turn resulted in a stronger
team.
Mentoring. The company instituted a mentoring program whereby employees who had been
in the company for less than a year would be paired with managers or supervisors. They
could e-mail their mentor if they had a particular problem or question, work together, meet
during lunch breaks, exercise together and generally have a chance to talk and solve any
problems that arose. It was not a formal sit-down session at all. It was a way to give new
employees help in getting used to the company and their new job and proved to be very
effective in employee development and retention.
Results

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 23:20 24 August 2014 (PT)

The numbers tell the story. Within three years of the new manager taking over the
manufacturing and production and implementing the measures outlined above, the
workforce had expanded to 50 people and the turnover was at $10 Million. This increase in
the workforce was only 30 per cent but the measures introduced to motivate and get the
most out of the multicultural workforce resulted in a 250 per cent increase in gross sales.
In the same time period and due to the same actions, customer returns of goods decreased
from 8 per cent to 2 per cent.
Due to the increase in efficiency it was possible to bring all manufacturing in house to the San
Francisco facility where before much of the work was being done by contractors in Mexico.
This was reverse of the general US trend to take advantage of cheap labor abroad by getting
more and more manufacturing done in other countries.
Summary
This case study shows quite clearly that an address to cultural differences and language
difficulties inherent in a multicultural workforce will bring substantial, measurable
improvement to a company which will show up in higher revenue, better quality and
general expansion.

About the author

Jinsoo Terry was born and educated in Korea where she gained a master degree in
Engineering and achieved success in an all male environment, Jinsoo emigrated to the USA
and climbed up from waitress to assembler to manager and vice president in various
companies, before starting her own company which provides consulting and training on
multicultural and global business issues to companies in America and other countries.
Having experienced all the challenges of an immigrant trying to make her way in the USA
and having traveled extensively and observed how different cultures do business, Jinsoo is
in a unique position to pass her experience on to others and help them succeed. She is
available for consulting and training programs in companies in the Americas, Europe and
Asia. Jinsoo can be contacted at: Jinsoo@jinsooterry.com

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

PAGE 64 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING VOL. 39 NO. 1 2007

This article has been cited by:

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 23:20 24 August 2014 (PT)

1. Monica W. Tracey, Kelly L. Unger. 2012. A design-based research case study documenting a constructivist ID process and
instructional solution for a cross-cultural workforce. Instructional Science 40:3, 461-476. [CrossRef]