Free Essay Example: Overcoming Cultural and Language Barriers When Outsourcing Jobs

Introduction

The Business Services Association (2014) reported that states and businesses that outsourced had a turnaround of about £199 billion and employed over 3.3 million individuals. Globalization has enabled businesses to employ individuals with different cultural backgrounds increasing cultural diversity. The merits of job outsourcing tend to outweigh the demerits, but some demerits could cost an organization more than it had anticipated. Intercultural and language barriers have been described as a significant barrier to outsourcing, leading to poor performance and failure to attain organizational objectives. Intercultural and language differences hinder the harmonious relationship between employees, leading to conflict, misunderstanding, and poor performance.

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Intercultural Issues in Outsourcing Jobs

Disparities in national and organizational culture could break or make an outsourcing job contract. Both client and vendor relationships have shown an excellent desire for understanding relationship management when outsourcing. The difference in organizational culture between service vendors and clients has been a significant cause of performance and relationship issues. Notably, values and norms cannot be harmonized since they are derived from the differences in working life, education, and cultural background. Offshore outsourcing could be complicated and critical as vendors and clients operate from different nations or geographical locations (Sollish et al. 7). In such a situation, the socio-technical comprehension of any issues is based on either the vendors' or clients' local artifacts or culture. Geographical differences could not be problematic with communication tools enhancing access. Nonetheless, meaningful communication could still be difficult if both parties fail to understand each other's customs. Studies show that vendors and clients tend to follow different days off and national or religious holidays, which should be considered during an offshore relationship.

Communication and language are also a significant problem when outsourcing jobs. Communication could be defined as the successful distribution or transmission of feelings and thoughts in speech or any other medium. Job outsourcing leads to intercultural communication, which is defined as the interaction or communication between cultural backgrounds. Scholars suggest that different styles of communication in different cultures tend to create meaning from the communication process (Sollish et al. 8). Hence, there are two central contexts of communication low and high context. Scholars have argued that understanding both concepts as opposites allows all possible combinations of information and context and remains a challenge in the workplace or outsourcing jobs. Hence, it is challenging to avoid misinterpretation since the receiver's and communicators' cultures are different, leading to miscommunication. Illustratively, comprehension barriers arise from three factors: vocabulary, syntax, and pronunciation. Accents could make English speakers from varying nations strain to understand each other effectively. Additionally, non-native English speakers could slip into their native language sentence structure. The inability to understand each other's clang and colloquial speech could lead to misunderstandings among colleagues.

Preconceptions could also be a significant barrier or issue of successful outsourcing of jobs. Notably, national cultures vary at the unconsciousness principles levels established at a young age. Preconception or prejudgment could be defined as any prematurely made judgment of an individual or subject without sufficient facts. According to Adler (1993), people tend to follow ethnocentric beliefs and create cultural dissimilarities with issues automatically (Kotlarsky et al. 163). This notion states that different cultures tend to be weighed with respect to preconceptions influenced or shaped by the values of one's culture, and people perceive the values of different cultures as lesser. In the workplace environment, the preconception of other employees negatively due to cultural background theory could lead to poor performance and low productivity. Organizations characterized by a lack of intercultural competencies tend to have more intercultural errors, leading to more issues while managing job outsourcing.

Overcoming Cultural and language barriers in job outsourcing

Cultural training has between reported as an effective intervention method for reducing cultural and language barriers in the workplace. Often, staff who take part in cross-border relationships learn different ways to attain intercultural collaboration but lack a structured opportunity that could reflect their experience and formally share it with employees. Cultural training is perceived as vital since it enables staff from different cultures to understand their client's organization and national culture (Kotlarsky et al. 164). However, there is also a need to ensure that cultural training remains a two-way learning process to ensure that both parties understand each other's culture, hence creating intercultural competencies. Intercultural competence is one's ability to understand their own and others' cultures hence resecting their beliefs, values, and practices. Through cultural competencies, staff members will develop respect towards each other, thus enhancing trust and respect, vital in the intercultural work environment.

Organizations could also use behavioral controls to mitigate the issues arising from outsourcing. Behavioral rules are specific relations implemented to impact the process associated with attaining a goal. Illustratively, scrum is a behavioral method used to encourage external and internal communication via active participation in scum and sprint meetings (Berdan 112). Behavior controls are effective if a manager or leader is aware of and observes the employees' behavior. The structure inherent in such behavioral controls enables the team to plan their time and overcome boundaries effectively. It also encourages communication, which allows overcoming socio-cultural, organizational, and geographical boundaries.

Another primary intervention measure for curbing language and cultural barriers is the use of language training. Personal development is a significant area in which organizations utilize. Language training is often implemented as a management strategy used in businesses. An organization could use tailor-made language courses since they are specifically designed or formulated to attain the establishment of organizational requirements. These courses enable employees to use the acquired knowledge immediately hence rewarding them for their sacrifices, which increases their motivation (Berdan 112). Additionally, the courses aid in helping earners make gradual progress. This is attainable since they face lesser objectives, which tend to be realistic but also challenging.

Organizations could also find other ways of ensuring messages are understood by their employees irrespective of geographical location. They could make use of multilingual translators in their team management. Likewise, they could use functional translating software apps. Regardless of any means, an organization will make use of, the objective should be to ensure that every team member feels valued and included. Employees who feel part of an organization tend to be more motivated and are committed to attaining the organizational objectives (Amant 2102). Leaders should ensure that they do not convey any 'form of bias toward any team member fluent in the organization's primary language. They should communicate in a manner that enables every staff or team member to feel that they are getting equal treatment irrespective of their language.

Organizations should ensure polite and clear communication to avoid any cultural and language barriers when outsourcing jobs. Notably, vivid and courteous communication minimizes the likelihood of crises, confrontations, and surprises. Both employers and employees must take cultural differences and diversity into account while communicating (Amant 2103). This could be attained by using simple words that every employee will understand, the use of visual techniques to effectively communicate results, and avoiding the use of slang phrases and words to ensure that all employees understand the message communicated irrespective of their culture. Vivid and polite communication will enable all employees to understand the decision-making process hence hindering rebellion and native attitudes between leaders and subordinates.

Organizations should set up a working environment that promotes learning about various cultures. Team members should be encouraged to learn about each other's culture and show a willingness to learn about different cultural backgrounds. It is vital to establish an inquiry culture since it fosters productive and effective working relationships (Amant 2104). By promoting patience and comprehension of other cultures' norms and beliefs, leaders create an inclusive workplace that makes all employees, irrespective of their geographical location, feel part of the organization.

Conclusion

Globalization has led to an increase in intercultural working environments. Therefore, companies' job outsourcing has become an important strategy used by companies since it lowers production costs. It is clear that working with intercultural employees is faced with many issues caused by culture and language. Some of the significant problems are miscommunication, conflict arising from misunderstanding, and turnover rates. Nonetheless, there are various interventions that organizations could use to ensure that outsourced employees aid in attaining the organization's goals irrespective of their language or culture. Some of the significant interventions include using behavioral controls, language, and cultural training of employees and fostering culturally diverse working environments.

Works Cited

Amant K. It Outsourcing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. , 2010. Internet resource.

Berdan, Stacie N. Go Global!: Launching an International Career Here or Abroad. United States: SNB Media, LLC, 2011. Print.

Kotlarsky, Julia, Leslie Willcocks, and Ilan Oshri. New Studies in Global It and Business Service Outsourcing: 5th Global Sourcing Workshop 2011, Courchevel, France, March 14-17, 2011 : Revised Selected Papers. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg, 2011. Internet resource.

Sollish, Fred, and John Semanik. Strategic Global Sourcing Best Practices. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2011. Internet resource.