Introduction
This essay aims to analyse the organisational culture observed at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts and how this affects employee and company performance. The report also seeks to understand how multinational hotels keep cultural differences to promote better performance among employees as well as attract more customers. In this case, the article will offer discussions on the American and English cultures as the hotel is a multinational corporation in different countries, including the UK and the US. The report will also analyse high and low contexts, given that the countries considered in this case study observe varying contexts. For example, the US observes everyday context in communication, while the UK observes high context (Holtbrugge, 2022). Since Wyndham Hotels and Resorts maintains intercultural connectedness and ensures an organisational culture that protects all employees and customers, a synergistic approach to intercultural management is essential for enhancing quality outcomes. Therefore, a synergetic process is necessary because it helps companies take notice of cultural differences and similarities, turning them into a competitive edge (Tutar et al., 2014). As such, this will offer the company a structure comprising new organisational or managerial forms beyond its members’ cultures.
An Analysis of Culture in Organisations
Culture
Culture is an essential aspect of the workplace as it affects how employees are managed based on their priorities and values. Therefore, the term culture has been defined by many scholars and researchers to refer to different aspects, but a common feature that can be noticed from all definitions is that culture is the way of life. For instance, James Spradley defines culture as the acquired knowledge people use to interpret different experiences and generate behaviour (Gregory, 1983). According to Hofstede (1997), culture is the way of life or a set of distinctive spiritual, intellectual, material and emotional features of a social group or society that encompasses value systems, art, beliefs, literature, traditions and lifestyle. Furthermore, the University of San Francisco (2023) states that objective and subjective aspects sometimes define culture. In this case, objective factors like festivals, food, political structures and art are felt, tasted or touched. Subjective culture refers to experiences of social reality formed by societal institutions. Looking at the case of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, economic globalisation is the key cultural diversity driver that makes the American culture the way it is. This is observed as the company’s workforce comprises people of different ages, genders, nationalities, ethnicities and religions, hence asking leaders to embrace diversity.
Global Trends in Intercultural Strategies and People Management
Significantly, various global trends affect people management and intercultural strategies. For instance, one of the global trends relating to intercultural strategy observed in the business sector is how companies deliver intercultural training. According to Sabet and Chapman (2023), modernisation has enabled learners to become personalised, immediate and flexible, whereby they can take less time to decide whether the content they view is good or bad. As such, this has led to the development of intercultural skills for all, whereby more companies now include every employee in intercultural training programs. The emerging trend in intercultural learning could be related to Edgar Schein’s transformational learning theory, which suggested it is a process of unlearning and re-learning. This is seen because the continuous introduction of new technologies makes people learn new things and unlearn older information as it becomes less valuable with time. Another emerging trend is that more companies are integrating intercultural tools, information, or courses into their intranets and portals to enable employees to reach them easily (Sabet & Chapman, 2023).
Furthermore, an emerging trend in people management is focusing on remote work policies, using technology for talent management, and fostering diverse and inclusive work environments. For example, AI is highly promoted in the hospitality sector, with more hotels using robots to perform minor roles (Limna, 2022).
Diversity
Diversity’s primary role is enabling people to actively participate in different activities and share ideas. As Turi et al. (2022) explain, this role is essential for organisational development as it helps to promote increased engagement among employees or external stakeholders, thereby improving team performance as individuals are motivated to reach set goals. As such, this shows that the role of diversity is to improve company performance as organisations will comprise individuals with different knowledge and skills or various cultures, thereby making employees share ideas and work towards a common goal. Therefore, organisations can acknowledge diversity by accepting people’s differences and finding common ground. For instance, a common ground that workers could identify is being part of a similar organisation. Another strategy to acknowledge diversity is avoiding stereotypes and recognising and addressing possible bias.
Additionally, there are various strategies that individuals can use to manage a diverse team. The first approach is adopting a full structural integration by ensuring that all organisational cultural groups are well-represented at all levels. This ensures that diversity is observed in all sectors in an inclusive approach. Significantly, this will influence leadership as it asks for leaders to follow measures that enable individuals to stay honest and voice their opinions on issues that arise. Another strategy for managing diverse teams is recognising and removing problems that might affect the intercultural measures observed (RSM Discovery, 2019). For example, leaders could identify possible barriers to diverse teams by creating a measurement framework that cuts across all levels of an organisation. Businesses can implement governance initiatives through this strategy to promote their diversity and inclusion goals. Observing inclusion policies is another approach that leaders could use to manage diverse teams. For example, this could be achieved through including minority groups in company goals. This measure will influence organisational leadership as leaders are expected to understand other people’s identities and strive towards reducing bias and discrimination. This is supported by the social identity theory, which states that equity and inclusion are promoted when leaders are aware of social identities at the workplace, fostering a common identity and belonging within their team (Ball & Branscombe, 2019).
Based on its increased popularity in organisations, there are various advantages and disadvantages of having a diverse team. The first advantage of a diverse group is that it helps to reduce costs as they will possess a large pool of talent who could engage in various activities, hence minimising the rate of hiring individuals to complete different tasks. A diverse team is also beneficial for resource acquisition as it enables companies to build a better reputation, attracting more investors and employees willing to work with a brand with a solid reputation. Moreover, diversity teams promote creativity whereby talented individuals hired will work together to develop the best strategies to solve issues that arise. Despite their advantages, diverse groups can also pose a threat to companies. For instance, diverse teams are likely to promote stereotypes, ill feelings, and misunderstandings among members (Stahl & Maznevski, 2021). Diverse groups are disadvantageous because some members are less likely to engage in communication or let their voices be heard. This is likely seen among members from polite, deferential cultures who are unlikely to actively engage in conversations (Stahl & Maznevski, 2021). For example, individuals from Japan are less likely to engage in discussions as they are less comfortable speaking up, especially when they are new or junior.
Therefore, leaders must consider various measures while managing culturally diverse teams to minimise disadvantages. The first strategy is overcoming language and cultural barriers. This could be done by identifying a common language that all members could comfortably use and encouraging individuals to practice a few sentences from other languages representing team members. Through this, the concept of inclusivity will be used to ensure everyone feels valued. Another strategy is considering the different cultural communication styles present. For instance, this could be done by recognising that high-context cultures observe indirect communication using non-verbal cues. In contrast, low-context cultures use direct communication as they rely on words. Diverse teams are also managed by promoting cross-cultural training to improve workplace morale and happiness.
Wyndham Hotels and Resorts Cultural Analysis
Americans observe a low-context culture whereby they rely on words to communicate. As a result, people are not forced to work on conflicts immediately to continue accomplishing set targets (Nam, 2015). On the other hand, the UK observes a high-context culture as they maintain indirect communication whereby individuals speak one at a time during dialogues. As a result, this forces employees to solve conflicts immediately to continue working (Nam, 2015). Significantly, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts highly values the culture of diversity and inclusion as it seeks to penetrate further into the international market. The company values diversity as it works closely with suppliers, employees, and investors who are women, people of colour, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ community, and other underrepresented groups (Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, 2023).
Diversity Management Plan
Using Hall’s cultural dimensions theory to resolve communication issues at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. The strategy to resolve communication issues at the hotel is based on embracing both cultures by encouraging employees to learn more about the opposite culture. Given that both the low and high-context cultures are observed at the hotel, embracing both will enable employees to understand better ways to communicate with each other.
Furthermore, Shalom Schwartz’s cultural values theory can be used to address the problems of perceptual stereotypes and bias that might affect the hotel. According to the theory, values guide behaviour and are ordered by importance relative to one another (Witte et al., 2020). Therefore, the hotel can develop a strategy based on this theory, which will encourage individuals to respect others by observing the value of egalitarianism. Through this, employees will follow social justice and equality, thereby minimising bias and stereotypes.
Conclusion
The findings from this assessment indicate that culture is a vital aspect of organisations because it affects how employees are managed based on their priorities and values. Therefore, recent developments have seen trends in intercultural activities and people management in various sectors. For example, intercultural training is now based on technology as learners have become more personalised. Companies have also integrated intercultural tools and information into their intranets and portals to enable employees to reach them easily. Results also indicated that diversity is essential in allowing people to actively participate in different activities and share ideas. A potential limitation in this case was facing a risk of bias as the data collected relied solely on existing research. Existing research could contain biased information, which could be hard for me to notice while collecting data. Furthermore, less future research should be done on Wyndham Hotels and Resorts as it is among the promising multinational hotels with less data to support their operations and strategies.
References
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Appendix
Diversity Management Plan for Wyndham Hotels and Resorts
The template below is partly my original work; the rest was retrieved from an external website. Links to the website are provided after the diversity management plan.
Wyndham Hotels and Resorts is committed to promoting equality, inclusion, and diversity in our employees and fighting unlawful discrimination, bias, or stereotyping.
The aim is for the hotel workforce to represent every section of our society and customers and for every employee to feel valued and respected and have a chance to give their best.
Wyndham Hotels and Resorts is also committed to customer discrimination.
Our policy’s purpose
- Provide fairness, equality and respect for all in our employment, whether temporary, part-time or full-time
- Not unlawfully discriminate because of the Equality Act 2010 protected characteristics of:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage and civil partnership
- pregnancy and maternity
- race (including colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origin)
- religion or belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
- Oppose and avoid all forms of unlawful discrimination.
Our commitments
- Encourage equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace as they are good practice and make business sense
- Create a working environment free of bullying, harassment, victimisation and unlawful discrimination, promoting dignity and respect for all, where individual differences and the contributions of all staff are recognised and valued.
This commitment includes training leaders, the management team and every employee on their rights and responsibilities under the equality, diversity and inclusion policy.
- We take seriously complaints of stereotyping, harassment, victimisation, bias or discrimination by fellow employees, customers, suppliers, visitors, the public and any others in the course of the organisation’s work activities.
Similar acts will be dealt with as misconduct under Wyndham Hotels and Resorts’ grievance and disciplinary procedures, and appropriate action will be taken. Severe complaints could amount to gross misconduct and lead to dismissal without notice.
- Monitor the make-up of the workforce based on organisational culture elements like ethnic background, age, sexual orientation, disability and religion. Wyndham Hotels and Resorts highly values equality, diversity and inclusion.
Agreement to follow this policy
The company’s senior management team fully supports the equality, diversity and inclusion policy and has agreed with trade unions and employee representatives in respective countries.
Our disciplinary and grievance procedures
Details of the organisation’s grievance and disciplinary policies and procedures can be found on the company website. This includes with whom an employee should raise a grievance – usually their line manager.
Template retrieved from Acas.org https://www.acas.org.uk/equality-policy-template
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