Cohesion is one of the critical human resource aspects of every business organization. This research paper discusses cohesion as guided by the human resource management practices in Australia. It defines cohesion and traits aligned or giving rise to it. Also, the report reviews multi-culturalism and multi-racialism and ways through which they contribute to cohesion. Further, it establishes the role of human resource and the management practices in the promotion of cohesion in the organization. Finally, the paper discusses the advantages and setbacks of cohesion in the workplace and concludes the research paper. Thus, this report is useful in revealing the organization’s aspects of cohesion.
Cohesion is the act of improving individual bond to form close relationship amongst people. The increased market competition and dynamic nature of business around the world have led to the globalization of organizations to achieve competitive advantages and increase their market share. Due to these facts, companies have decided to re-structure their human resource operations and strategies by recruiting employees across the globe to improve on their competencies and harness a vast knowledge and experience. As the result of changing workforce demographics, there is an increased need for managing the diversity in Australian workplaces to ensure cohesion, cooperation and unison spirit in the workplace.
The culture of Australia upholds and value, authenticity, and sincerity. Australians prefer people who are modest, humble, self-deprecating and with a sense of humor. Further, they do not draw attention to their academic or other achievements and tend to distrust people who do. They often downplay their success which portrays them as not to be achievement-oriented (Zierscha, Gallahera, Bauma and Bentleya, 2011, pp. 1045–1053).
The concept and practice of diversity management, multi-culturalism and multi-racialism have evolved over decades of years catalyzed by the emergent of an immigrant population. On the onset of fighting racialism and cultural cocoons, the government of Australia introduced legislation that checked discrimination vices based on race and culture. This legislation promoted equal opportunity and occupational health and safety indiscriminately. To this effect, organizations had the task of compliance with the legislation to avoid misfortunes of lawsuits and harsh penalties, reputation dents and cheap workers morale after reduced productivity (Huang and Hsueh, 2007, pp. 265–271).
Australia is a multi-cultured and multi-racial country that accommodates shared values and cultural traditions. Moreover, the country’s legislation does not discriminate people from many walks of life but offers a platform that is diverse and broad evident in country’s food, lifestyle and cultural practices and experience. It is for these reasons that the state has adopted best practices in human resource management for effective diversity management (Ruteere, 2012). Further, the multi-culturalism and multi-racialism factors recognize the diversity of the people in many ways, both visible and invisible; gender, marital and social status extra. Despite the significant step the country has made towards multiracialism and cohesion, the country faces social and political challenges that pose threats to its unity and security (Verhoeven, 2008, pp. 124-135).
Human resource management in Australia has cultivated effective guidance and leads to ensure cohesion and togetherness are achieved in workplaces in the country making the department to hold a vital role in reconciling diverse culture and delivering impressive performance (Hofstede, 2010). The function achieves its objective through ensuring and effecting best practices in workers, suppliers and customers relationships management, teamwork and productivity. Moreover, the strategies and policies adopted and implemented by the leadership of organizations enhance and reinforce the spirit of cohesion (Biswas, 2010, pp. 102–110).
As a strategy to manage multi-culturalism and multi-racialism, organizations have peddled the drive to improve communication efficiency. This effort is meant to cut on misconceptions and miscommunication which is technically a hurdle to cohesion and unity in organizations. The leadership of these organizations works on information gathered to improve individual and team performance through engaging them on the platform of their culture which should be within the confines of the policies and rules of the organization. Employees will feel valued in the organization (Paradies, Chandrakumar and McLean, 2009).
The human resource needs to establish training and development areas to their employees to ensure standardized performance that can be easily monitored, evaluated and benchmarked for the goals and objectives of the organization (Daft and Marcic, 2009). Additionally, the HR practices on career progression should adequately reflect and encompass diversity issues otherwise some employees will develop negative perceptions in the whole process (Mulunga and Yazdanifard, 2014, pp. 14–20).
The policy of equalization on opportunities, rewards, and recognition is essential in promoting cohesion. Moreover, panels evaluating and selecting individuals for promotions should be objective and also panel to reflect diversity. Further, remuneration systems should be accurate and-and operate on the principle of equity and performance-based pays (Demireva, 2014). This is inclusive of the wage determinants, and benefit schemes should reflect the universal principles and consider each concerning their abilities, knowledge, and skills.
The organizations in Australia ensure compliance to legal obligations including safety and equal employment opportunities thereby enhancing cohesion. Moreover, it encourages inclusion, participation and general contributions of all the employees to the overall company goals and objectives. It has become a statement of the fact that one out of 5 workers in Australia were born overseas. Most of the Australians are immigrants or their descendants who arrived from more than 200 countries a couple of decades ago (Lussier and Achua, 2010).
Therefore for organizations to operate optimally and in an ideal environment, they have embraced the norm and extended the consent of diversity acceptance to other stakeholders working direct or indirect with them. These directives are attained through recognition and implementing culture-sensitive tactics and strategies in the products, marketing and provision of goods activities (Wessendorf, 2013, pp. 13–11).
The managers are highly tasked to create and establish a culture that is impartial, indiscriminate and all-inclusive. Further, the leadership of organizations has the responsibility of searching and understanding what motivates and satisfies their employees regardless of their background and dealing with them accordingly. The cultural context is crucial in determining motivation and expectations of a multi-cultured workplace (Dietz, 2007, pp. 7–30). Therefore, managers have to go an extra mile to meet workers’ expectations differently. Some practices and processes they implement include:
Forging and establishing healthy close relationships is vital for smooth operations of organizational activities and cultivation a culture of trust. The friendly and cohesive culture in Australia has cemented stakeholder’s relations inclusive of the employees, customers and the communities (Markus, 2013). The companies can form consistent close relationships because of trust and assure working environment. Marketing and servicing culturally diverse domestic and overseas customers
The traits of people in Australia has changed and assumed a humble and down to earth personality. This means they will avoid friction and unnecessary aggression or show-offs against their colleagues. In the long run, cohesion and close relationships are established on these grounds.
Increased team leader and team member awareness of cultural factors within teams improve the capacity of all members of the team to contribute. Australians place a high value on relationships. The Australians never discriminate rather put a high value on relationships (Beam, 2012). This is informed by their belief of future uncertainties that might prompt assistance from anyone.
The present state of culture and workers diversity in Australia has advanced and become an asset to the organizations producing a good performance. Groups in this country have adapted into the culture of multi-racialism and diversity because of the increasing need for variant expertise and world-class skills and knowledge which is an asset and capable of benefiting the organization with a competitive edge. This is essential because different competencies, skills, and experience are pooled together to deliver splendid performance. Among the benefits achieved in organizations, courtesy of multi-culture and diversification is the emergence of innovations and possession of world-class expertise and talents.
Different hurdles face achievement of coherence in organizations. Examples, misunderstanding of other people’s culture and beliefs in the workplace will lead to a misguided grudge and reservations which will eventually affect the organization’s goals and objective (Zheng, Yang and McLean, 2010, pp. 763–771).
The absence of fair, balanced and objective systems of evaluation, recognition, and reward will pit some employees against others. To avoid such menace, organizations in Australia have rigid, impartial and fair systems that standardize the process of evaluation, feedback and reward across all race and culture.
Conclusion
Cohesion in Australia has been achieved through multi-culture and multi-racialism practice in the organization across the country. These measures that promote diversity have been found to have a direct impact on the teams’ performance due to the pool of competencies, skills, and knowledge across the globe. Nevertheless, the efforts to achieve cohesion face some setbacks which include subjective and discriminative systems, miscommunication and misconceptions extra.
Reference
Beam, M. (2012). Emotional Intelligence and Team Cohesiveness. Marshall University. Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones.
Biswas, S. (2010). The relationship between psychological climate and turnover intentions and its impact on the organizational effectiveness: a study in Indian organizations. IIMB Manage, pp. 102–110
Daft, R. and Marcic, D. (2009). Understanding Management (6th ed). Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning
Demireva, N. (2014). Briefing: Immigration, Diversity and Social Cohesion. The Migration Observatory at the University of theOxford.
Dietz, G. (2007). Keyword: Cultural diversity. A guide through the debate. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, pp. 7–30
Hofstede, G. (2010). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind: Intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Huang, C. and Hsueh, S. (2007). A study on the relationship between intellectual capital and the business performance in the engineering consulting industry: a path analysis approach. J Civil Eng Manager, pp. 265–271
Lussier, R. and Achua, C. (2010). Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development (4th ed.). Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning
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Mulunga, S. and Yazdanifard, R. (2014). Review of the social inclusion, social cohesion and social capital in the modern organization. Global Journal of Management and Business Research: (A) Administration and Management, pp. 14–20.
Paradies, L., Chandrakumar, N., and McLean, P. (2009). Building on our strengths: a framework to reduce race-based discrimination and support diversity in Victoria: Full report.
Ruteere, M (2012). Report of the Special Rapporteur on the contemporary forms of the racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. UN Doc. HRC/20/33.
Verhoeven, P. (2008). Who’s in and who’s out? Studying the effects of communication management on the social cohesion. Journal of Communication Management, pp. 124–135.
Wessendorf, S. (2013). Being open, but sometimes closed. Living together in a super-diverse London neighborhood. MMG Working paper, pp. 13–11.
Zheng, W., Yang, B. and McLean, G. (2010). Linking the organizational culture, structure, strategy, and the organizational effectiveness: the mediating role of knowledge management. J Bus Res, pp. 763–771
Zierscha, A., Gallahera, G., Bauma, F. and Bentleya, M. (2011). Responding to racism: Insights on how racism can damage health from an urban study of Australian Aboriginal people. Social Science & Medicine, pp. 1045–1053.
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