What is culture? It may be summarized as a shared system of meanings about the world that surround us. People within a cultural group share the structuring of their environment, they see things and situations in a very similar way, and this generates a feeling of union and belonging. There are many cultures, and inside any one culture you can find several subcultures, each of which perceives the world in a different way. Something that is “very common” for members of one group can be “very uncommon” for others.
Culture is learned in coexistence with the rest of the community. Values and beliefs are formed by it, although this does not define the individual for each person is “programmed” in their own way.
Within any given company, there are multiple cultures interacting on a daily basis. Those of each person who integrate it interact with one that covers them all equally: the organizational culture that every company creates and promotes.
This phenomenon poses a great challenge for Human Resources, even more so for an organization that is part of the localization business sector. This involves many people from different countries who are so culturally diverse from one another. Management must be able to create an environment in which everyone can feel included, united and share similar attitudes and ways of being and doing things within the organization.
As Human Resources professionals, we are responsible for identifying needs, differences and similarities and taking necessary actions to reach a point where all subcultures have a sense of being understood and can adapt to work in harmony with one another. It is a task that never ends. We should always be attentive to changes, new challenges and the complexity of the world surrounding the organization, among other influential factors.
The fascinating thing about developing such a varied and complex multicultural environment is that everyone can benefit from learning from these coexisting subcultures. This way, we create a workspace where those involved can experience a sense of freedom and flexibility regarding their cultural paradigms. This allows for the formation of motivated team members that enjoy cultural diversity. This can unite their individual skills to create the best possible outcome. In other words, to make the workplace a nice place to be! And, just like great cheese comes from happy cows, great translation services come from happy employees.
