21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Contents
Learning Outcomes 3
Learning Outcome No. 1: Develop an individuals' cultural awareness and
sensitivity 3
Information Sheet 4.1-1 3
Workplace Diversity 3
Different types of workplace diversity 4
Why is workplace diversity so important? 4
The Advantages of Having a Diverse Workplace 4
The challenges of Creating a Diverse Workforce 5
References 6
Self-Check No. 4.1-1 6
Workplace Diversity 6
Answer Key No. 4.1-1 7
Workplace Diversity 7
Learning Outcome No. 2: Work effectively in an environment that acknowledges
and values cultural diversity. 8
Information Sheet 4.2-1 8
Managing Change in the Workplace 8
Information Sheet 4.2-2 9
Understanding the Factors that Support and Resist Change 9
Information Sheet 4.2-3 10
Managing Diversity in the Workplace 10
Task Sheet No. Sheet 4.2-3 11
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Managing Diversity in the Workplace 11

Learning Outcome No. 3: Identify common issues in a multicultural and diverse
environment 11
Information Sheet. 4.3-1 11
Organizational Culture and the Role of Leaders in Shaping It 11
Task Sheet No.. 4.3-1 13
Organizational Culture and the Role of Leaders in Shaping It 13
Information Sheet. 4.3-2 13
Cross-cultural Management: Filipino Culture and Foreign Cultures 13
Tasks Sheet. 4.3-2 14
Cross-cultural Management: Filipino Culture and Foreign Cultures 14
Performance Criteria Checklist 2.2-3 15
Information Sheet. 2.3-1 15
Setting Performance Expectations for Team Members 15
Knowledge and Skill in Setting Individual Performance Target/Expectation 15
Team member Duties and Responsibilities 17
Employee Policies and Procedures 17
Defining Performance Expectations Criteria 19
Self-Check No. 2.3-1 20
Setting Performance Expectation for Team Members 20
Task sheet 2.3-1 21
Performance Criteria Checklist 2.3-1 22
Information Sheet No. 2.4-1 22
Supervising Team Performance 22
Knowledge and skills in Monitoring Team member Performance 22
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Self-Check No. 2.4-1 29

Supervising Team Performance 29
Answer Key No. 2.4-1 29
Supervising Team Performance 29
References 29

Learning Outcomes
● Develop an individual`s cultural awareness and sensitivity
● Work effectively in an environment that acknowledges and values cultural
diversity
● Identify common issues in a multicultural and diverse environment ]

Learning Outcome No. 1: Develop an individuals' cultural

awareness and sensitivity

Information Sheet 4.1-1

Workplace Diversity
Workplace diversity is the term used for the workplace composed of employees with varying
characteristics, such as different sex, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.

Workplace diversity is the term used for the workplace composed of employees with varying
characteristics, such as different sex, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.

A company with workplace diversity is one that has employees with a wide range of characteristics and
experiences.

Different types of workplace diversity

There are many different types of workplace diversity. In the beginning, the term diversity was used
primarily to address racial and ethnic diversity.

However, in recent years, the term workplace diversity has been expanded to encompass many
different characteristics, such as:
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

● Race
● Ethnicity
● Gender
● Age
● Sexual Orientation
● Physical abilities and disabilities
● Religion
● Political beliefs
● Education
● Socioeconomic background
● Geographical orientation
● Language
● Culture
● Military Service

Why is workplace diversity so important?

In a modern, globally connected society and market, workplace diversity is becoming a
necessity rather than a banner companies wave to show their commitment to embracing
differences.
Most modern companies can sell their products all over the world, reaching many different
groups of people. In order to successfully create, present and sell tier products in this global
market, companies need a diversified workforce.

The Advantages of Having a Diverse Workplace

When you put a variety of individuals together in the same room, you`ll get different perspectives and
opinions that can benefit your business. This will allow your business to grow in a number of ways

1. Greater Creativity and Innovation

Whenever a group of like-minded people is put together, they will generate similar ideas. This is
because their thinking patterns are very much alike. However, if you change things up by mixing
diverse individuals together, you`ll have a workforce that`s more prone to creativity and
innovation – two important ingredients for success.

A heterogeneous workforce will be able to exchange unique perspectives and spark fresh ideas.
A good example here is the Disney brand, which boasts a highly diversified enterprise with more
than 200,000 employees worldwide.

2. Increased Productivity

Diversity and productivity go hand in hand. Research has found that diversifying your team can
boost productivity by 30%. A diverse workforce is more likely to understand your customer`s
needs and come up with ideas to fulfill them. Diversity in the workplace will also increase
employee morale and instill a desire to be more effective and work more efficiently. This will
greatly increase the productivity of your business.

3. Reduced Employee Turnover

 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

A workplace that encourages diversity and inclusion will make employees feel valued and
accepted. This will ensure happiness among your workforce. Happy workers will stay with your
company for longer, meaning you`ll spend less money and time on recruiting. By reducing your
employee turnover, you`ll have more time and funds to invest elsewhere in your business.

4. Connect to a Wider Range of Consumers

If you want to target a wide range of consumers, you`ll need a diverse workforce. By hiring
individuals of varying backgrounds, languages, etc. you can ensure that your company appeals
to a wider target market. Because your employees come from different backgrounds, they`ll be
able to connect with consumers from all walks of life.

5. Increased Revenue

Increasing revenue is a priority in any company. By reaping all the benefits of a workforce, you
will come closer to your ultimate goal of increasing profits. A recent study by the Boston
Consulting Group found that companies with a diverse workforce and increased innovation
generated 19% more revenue than companies with lower diversity scores. The proof is in the
numbers.

The challenges of Creating a Diverse Workforce

As with anything in life, creating a diverse workforce doesn`t come easy. Below is a list of 3 challenges
you may face along the way:

1. Unfair Prejudices

Unfortunately, there are individuals who cannot tolerate people who are different from them.
This can result in acts of racism, sexual harassment, or even religious discrimination.

If these difficulties develop in your company, it can create an uncomfortable (and even
dangerous) work environment and damage your company`s reputation.

You will need to implement strict policies against any forms of discrimination in the workplace
and take immediate action against those who don`t adhere to the rules.

2. Communication Barrier

Having a diverse team could mean that some of the members speak foreign languages. This
could result in a communication gap between employees, which will negatively impact your
company`s productivity.

You can avoid this by hiring multilingual individuals to perform translations. There are also
various translation apps on the market that you can choose from. You can even consider
sending employees to educational courses to learn new languages. As a side bonus, this will aid
them in communicating with foreign customers.

Bridging the communication gap between employees will make your company grow and open
up more doors to success.

3. Different Interpretations of Professional Etiquette

 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Different cultures have different traditions. In addition to that, they also have different values
and etiquette when it comes to the workplace. This may cause misunderstandings between
team members and potentially lead to conflict.

For example, in Japanese culture, it`s customary when visiting someone else`s office to wait until
the host asks you to sit own. Therefore, a Japanese employee may find it offensive when a U.S.
colleague enters their office and immediately takes a seat.

To overcome this and prevent conflict in the workplace, make sure that your employees
understand and respect each other`s traditions.

References
https://www.talentlyft.com/en/resources/what-is-workplace-diversity
https://perelson.com/the-importance-of-diversity-in-the-workplace/

Self-Check No. 4.1-1

Workplace Diversity
Identify if the following statements are Advantages or challenges of having a diverse workforce
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Answer Key No. 4.1-1

Workplace Diversity
Advantages
● Greater Creativity and Innovation
● Increased productivity
● Reduced employee turnover
● Connect to a wider range of consumers
● Increased Revenue
Challenges
● Unfair Prejudices
● Communication Barriers
● Different interpretation of Professional Etiquette

Learning Outcome No. 2: Work effectively in an

environment that acknowledges and values
cultural diversity.
Information Sheet 4.2-1
Managing Change in the Workplace
As human beings, we are familiar with the concept of change. At the individual level, we
experience changes in our physical, intellectual, and social capabilities as we grow in age. We
experience changes in our emotions and moods in our everyday lives. At the environmental
level, we are aware of the changes occurring in the economic, political, social, technological,
and natural conditions that affect people and organizations.
Change within the workplace pertains to any alteration, deviation, or modifications
happening at work that affects employees and which they must act on. Change may be
described in terms of three dimensions: content, process, and pace. The content is the topic or
subject of change. This has many possibilities in an organization. For example, it can refer to a
change in office location, change in leadership, change in operational systems and procedures,
or change in competitive strategies. The process of change is the approach or manner in which
change is introduced or implemented. For instance, change may be introduced in a gradual
way, such as through a series of in-house training and field exposures of employees about a
new manufacturing system. The pace of change is the speed of effecting the change. For
example, a marketing manager wants to launch a new company product within a two-month
timeline instead of one year.
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Managers need to deal with the complex nature of change. They act as agents of change
in an organization. A change that occurs as a result of the purposive effort to address a
performance gap or deviation is called planned change. Someone is being proactive when
doing a planned change. That person informs his or her target audience about the change to be
worked on. An example of a planned change is when an operations manager implements a new
quality management program to improve quality and productivity in work. A change that occurs
spontaneously or randomly without someone directing it is called unplanned change. An
example of an unplanned change is when a vice president of a company suddenly resigns due
to health reasons.
Planned change in the workplace can be classified as a minor or a major change. A
minor change has little effect on company performance. An example of a minor change is when
a manager decorates the office with new furniture. By comparison, a major change has a
substantial or significant effect on company performance. An example of a major change is the
enforcement of a new human resource policy on a rewards system that significantly revises the
work incentives granted to all employees.
Managers have an important role in managing change in the workplace. The following
discusses how a manager can bring about a planned and major change within the company.
This type of change wrongly affects the behavior and
performance of all workers. Top management is
concerned about transformational change. This type of
change is intended to strongly affect the behavior and
performance of all workers. Top management is
concerned about transformational change. This type of
change involves the development of organizational
structure, processes, and people to ensure a change in
organizational culture. Changes pervade through the
active participation of all employees to improve the
performance of the organization. An example of a
transformational change is when a company has
successfully implemented a Quality Improvement
Program throughout all departments and management
levels resulting in consistently high performance. The
outcome is attributed to new ways of allocating responsibilities and tasks (structure), the
constant search for more innovative systems and procedures (process), and the active
participation of employees throughout the organization (people). Transformation occurs
because the required change is embedded in the mindsets, and behavioral patterns (culture)
acquired by people within the company.
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Information Sheet 4.2-2

Understanding the Factors that Support and
Resist Change

Managers use different approaches for managing change in the workplace. One particular approach
used to manage change is Kurt Lewin`s Force Analysis. It involves the planned efforts of people to effect
change within the organization by balancing the forces that resist or impede the required change with
the forces that facilitate and support the required change.

Change can be introduced by adding new supporting forces and removing the restraining forces.
Another way to effect change is to increase the strength of the supporting forces and decrease the
strength of the restraining forces. Lastly, one may also try to increase people`s awareness of the
supporting forces, and highlight the rewards associated with them.

For instance, in the figure shown above, an application using the Force Field Analysis for
managing a planned change, particularly about a company that wanted to upgrade its factory
operations by introducing new manufacturing about company that wanted to upgrade its
factory operations by introducing new manufacturing equipment. Based on the analysis, the
identified supporting forces for the planned change are the following: lower maintenance costs,
reduced training time, improved production speed, and customers wanting new products. On
the other hand, the identified restraining forces for the planned change are disruption, cost,
impact on the environment, and staff overtime. Managers then act to decrease the strength of
or remove the restraining forces. At the same time, managers initiate efforts to increase the
strength of or add more supporting forces.
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Information Sheet 4.2-3

Managing Diversity in the Workplace
Workforce diversity refers to a mix of people working within a company who are different in respect to
age, gender, race, ethnicity, and physical capabilities. As such, people have different cultural
backgrounds, skills and capabilities, and personalities that affect how they work and relate with each
other. Diversity is valuable and is important because bringing people together with their unique
backgrounds, skills, and talents ushers new ways of thinking and doing things that benefit the entire
organization.

To manage diversity of people in the workplace, managers adopt company policies and guidelines that
promote respect and tolerance for people`s differences. For instance, hiring procedures ensure fairness
by not discriminating applicants from different backgrounds. Companies are also careful that their
advertisements do not contain any language or image that may offend the sensibilities or violate the
rights of ethnic or cultural groups within the Philippines or of different people across the globe. With
respect to group dynamics, employees also try to adjust to differences in personalities of people to
ensure smooth working relationships
21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Task Sheet No. 4.2-3

Managing Diversity in the Workplace
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Learning Outcome No. 3: Identify common

issues in a multicultural and diverse
environment
Information Sheet. 4.3-1
Organizational Culture and the Role of Leaders
in Shaping It
Organizational culture pertains to shared assumptions, shared beliefs, shared practices, and
shared values among members of an organization. As every individual has a distinct personality,
every organization also has a unique culture. That is why it is important to understand the
culture of an organization. People within an organization may or may not be aware of their
organizational culture. To better understand the organizational culture in a company, you
should look beyond what is visible (i.e., the occurring events in a company) and dig deeper
below the surface to find out the beliefs and assumptions that people hold. Company culture is
a mix of the patterns and trends of the behavior of people within the company. It is reflected in
the way the tasks are allocated, how decision-making is shared, and how the mental image of
people about the company is formed and shared. Some aspects of organizational culture that
may be visible are the common practices and traditions of a company. For instance, a company
greets employees on their birthdays through the company`s internal Web site. This reflects that
management values the relationship of people within the workplace. Some aspects of
organizational culture, however, are not visible, such as the employees` common beliefs about
the company`s image and reputation. Knowing more about a company`s culture will guide
managers in decision-making, planning, and transforming resources to achieve higher
organizational performance.
It is important to note that although a company may have a distinct corporate culture,
there are also subcultures in each of the departments and units. For example, production
people are more conscious of procedures and of time management. The marketing people put
more emphasis on flexible and fast-paced systems to quickly respond to customers. The
accounting and finance people stick to the well-established orderly, and sable ways of doing
their tasks.
Leaders know that it is important to develop a positive or favorable organizational
culture. Organizational culture gives an overall identity to employees-such as excellent in work.
Also, it helps employees to feel secure because they could feel and observe the positive values
in their company. In turn, a positive organizational culture encourages employees to perform
well, and feel more satisfied in their work and makes them stay longer with the company.
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Leaders play an important role in shaping organizational culture. Through their behavior
as good leaders, they serve as primary examples or role models for employees to follow. For
instance, a manager who shows respect for subordinates will encourage those subordinates to
also show respect for other employees.
There are various elements that can help leaders in shaping the company culture, such
as the following:
● Company policies and guidelines - for example, by using the company code of conduct
and manual of operations.
● Customs and traditions - for example, by holding annual team buildings, and birthday
celebrations among employees, or by knowing the history of the company and its
founding leaders which are orally passed on to the employees.
● Office physical arrangements - for example, by giving emphasis on office order and
cleanliness, or by giving preference to using modern furniture and attractive decorations
in the office as opposed to traditional office styles and ornaments.
● Leadership or management styles - for example, by encouraging employees to
participate in decision-making which reflects a participative leadership style, or by
maintaining a regular and strict monthly monitoring of company performance which
reflects a strong emphasis on management control systems
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Task Sheet No.. 4.3-1

Organizational Culture and the Role of Leaders
in Shaping It
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Information Sheet. 4.3-2

Cross-cultural Management: Filipino Culture and Foreign
Cultures

Due to globalization, many companies today are characterized by multiculturalism wherein employees
from different countries work together. Examples are overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) employed in
foreign countries. Some multinational companies based in the Philippines have executives who live in
major cities, such as Manila and Cebu. These situations call for skills in cross-cultural management,
which is managing people of different nationalities. Managers assigned to other countries must learn
how to easily adjust to people from those areas. Cultural Intelligence (CQ) pertains to knowing how to
quickly adjust to a new and diverse culture in a different work setting. National culture is like an iceberg
in which the visible part on the surface level is only a minor part, and what lies below the surface level
constitutes the deeper and most substantial part. The visible parts of national culture are the people`s
choices for food, fashion, music, arts and crafts, language, and performances. The deep culture of a
nation is much more complex. It reflects on people`s communication styles and habits, notions of
courtesy and respect, concepts about time, concepts about fairness and justice, attitudes toward age
groups, attitudes toward competition, beliefs about religion, and much more.

Each country has its cultural standards or manners of conduct. As shown in the figure above, some
cultural traits of Americans, Chinese, Germans, Indonesians, and Filipinos. The Americans are known for
their individualism and achievement orientation. The Chinese people emphasize social harmony, a
network of social relations. The Germans are known for being task-and rule-oriented. The Indonesians
share some common cultural traits with Filipinos, such as an emphasis on conflict avoidance, which is
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

manifested in the pakikisama (or smooth interpersonal relationship) that is valued by Filipnos. The
Indonesians are hierarchical or emphasize the social distance between a superior and a subordinate.
Filipino is also hierarchical by giving respect and obedience to authorities.
 21st Century Skills-Basic Competency NC III: Work in a diverse environment

Tasks Sheet. 4.3-2

Cross-cultural Management: Filipino Culture and Foreign
Cultures