Effective Communication Strategies in a Culturally Diverse Workplace (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Cultural diversity is about accepting and respecting people's differences. After all, in order to communicate effectively, you need to understand your audience and deliver your message in a way that will make the most sense to your audience. So, when the audience is culturally diverse, the challenge is to understand their differences and be sensitive to how your message will be received. Let's explain four ways to communicate better in today's diverse workplace. 1. Keep your language clear and simple, as you may not share the same first language. Avoid jargon, slang terms, and colloquial expressions. 2. Different cultures have different non-verbal forms of communication. So, make sure that you are not ignorant of differences in body language. For example, consider personal space and touching habits of different cultures. Consider how appropriate hand shaking, embraces, or direct eye contact is. 3. To make sure that you understand perfectly well, paraphrase or repeat what you hear. This will minimize misunderstandings. 4. Be open and inclusive of other cultures by getting to know colleagues from different cultural backgrounds. This will help build relationships. As you get to know their cultures better you will also communicate more effectively with colleagues. Communicating effectively in a culturally diverse environment requires tact and sensitivity. So, the better you know other cultures the more effectively you can communicate in a diverse workplace. Thank you for watching.