Multicultural working communities

A multicultural work community may give your company a significant competitive advantage. People of different backgrounds bring with them different ways of thinking, points of view and skills. This may have a positive effect on your company’s working practices, product development and internationalisation.

Multiculturalism may improve your company’s image. Multicultural companies are often regarded as attractive employers. 

Multiculturalism is also an advantage if your company’s customers have a foreign background. Customer service and customer satisfaction may improve if your employees share the culture of your customers, know their preferences and customs and are able to serve them in their language if necessary.

Working in a multicultural work community teaches new things to all your employees regardless of their nationality. It widens their language skills, improves their knowledge of cultures and increases tolerance.

Make sure that the supervisors and managers in your company have sufficient tools for managing a multicultural work community. Ensure that the multiculturality of the staff is taken into consideration in occupational healthcare and occupational safety.

Make sure that clear language that is easy to understand is used in the inductions and that your employees have a sufficient understanding of matters related to occupational healthcare and occupational safety and health. Also ensure that they know their rights, responsibilities and obligations in working life in Finland.

Pay special attention to fairness and equality. Encourage your employees to interaction and try to prevent small cliques from forming. Draw up instructions for situations in which discrimination may occur. Discuss with employees how cultural differences affect interaction and the work flow.

Support the development of Finnish or Swedish language skills of persons who come from other cultures. Use a language that is easy to understand in internal communication. If the working language is for example English, support the development of English skills of all of your employees.