How to manage a global multicultural team

Expanding your workforce internationally can bolster team skill sets and enrich company culture.

Success here demands an altered approach to management, especially if your team has a remote or distributed structure, which is more likely now than ever.

Developing cultural competency across a diverse team, who are often separated by location, takes time, nuanced understanding, and active learning.

Building workplace communities without a shared location is a curated effort.

One that needs to align your team to use their joint skillset most effectively across productivity, deliverables, and targets.

Also, managers need more intentional focus to help each team member feel valued, challenged to a healthy degree, and supported on how to access opportunities for growth.

For multicultural teams, this starts with awareness, clear, flexible communication and respect across different cultures.

How to integrate a diverse team with speed and simplicity

Expanding your team internationally sits hand in hand with a broader, richer tapestry of cultures becoming part of your everyday workflow.

An EOR partner gives Australian companies a simplified solution to the challenges of hiring overseas.

The employer of record model allows you to save the time and money associated with launching a legal entity in another country. An EOR will also manage compliance obligations on your behalf.

A comprehensive HR platform built for global teams can provide your team with integrated benefits, local currency payments, rapid onboarding, and HR lifecycle management – all automatically individualised to each locality.

This gives your company a baseline of inclusion across your tech stack, your toolset, and your compensation strategy.

Shed ‘one size fits all’ mantras to foster inclusion

It’s a misconception that fairness and inclusion stems from taking the same approach with everyone.

This doesn’t consider background, context or baseline understanding.

Take an individual approach to how you manage each of your team and you can build a strong foundation of holistic fairness.

Effective communication for a multicultural team hinges on consideration of language, tone, and communication methods.

This includes non-verbal cues, the channels you choose for team interaction, and styles of direct conversation.

Inclusive language in company communications across all platforms, documentation, and forms is important to foster trust and belonging.

This can result in significant improvements in your ability to attract and retain elite global talent.

Key employee platforms should be engaging but easy-to-use, like HRIS portals and cloud storage areas for employee handbooks.

Always offer accessible information around incentives, career advancement pathways, and benefit entitlements.

Over-communicate to provide clarity for everyone

Although your management and communication style may shift on a one-to-one basis, establishing a baseline communication culture of clear and simple dialogue as a group is key.

Not everyone’s first language will be English, and jargon common to you, may not be for others on your team.

It’s important to over-communicate and use simple dialogue to provide clarity for everyone.

Take a step back and simplify your approach here.

Use easy-to-understand language, with concise messaging, while still providing thorough, detailed instructions.

Always leave space for questions both ways, creating an open dialogue for deeper understanding without judgment.

Root out cultural bias to build equity and cohesion

Active listening is a baseline tenet of open and inclusive teams.

But to actively listen in a complete way, you should be taking in individual and cultural differences for a broader picture of what’s being said.

Is the team member you’re talking to more familiar with low or high context cultures?

Low context refers to cultures where straightforward, explicit communication is common.

High context refers to cultures where body language, tone and overall context factor into standard communication styles.

Those who lean towards the former aren’t automatically being aggressive. On the flipside, those who lean towards the latter aren’t necessarily being cordial or civil.

Consider async, remote or distributed team set-ups

Baking more working style flexibility into your company culture is directly linked to inclusivity, across different cultures.

It’s a solid concept that can be implemented fairly quickly with EOR collaboration, providing an instant boost for your team’s productivity, wellbeing and quality of life, across differing needs.

When you give your team members the autonomy to decide how they work and live, you’ve already begun leading with respect, inclusion, and cultural awareness.