Cultural Diversity in Zain Group: Challenges and Recommendations

This paper talks about the telecommunication company Zain Group. This paper will assess the existing cultural characteristics of the organization and the cultural challenges in the workplace. The paper will provide recommendations that the company may apply to achieve cultural diversity in the workplace that will help the company in their smooth operations that will pave way for the success of the company.

Running head: CULTURAL DIVERSITY
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive summary
This paper talks about the telecommunication company Zain Group. This paper will assess
the existing cultural characteristics of the organization and the cultural challenges in the
workplace. The paper will provide recommendations that the company may apply to achieve
cultural diversity in the workplace that will help the company in their smooth operations that
will pave way for the success of the company.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Brief overview of the company..............................................................................................3
Multi-cultural characteristics of the Zain Group in its international operations....................3
Multi-cultural characteristics of the Zain Group in its domestic operations..........................3
Differences in organizational and professional culture..........................................................4
Cultural issues in Zain Group................................................................................................4
Leadership management issue in Zain Group........................................................................5
Cultural and ethnic differences..........................................................................................5
Language and Communication barriers.............................................................................6
Accepting differences of others.........................................................................................6
Corporate culture....................................................................................................................6
Recommendations..................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Cultural diversity in the workplace today is at the top and highest point. With
companies becoming diverse it has become necessary and important for the companies to
manage and understand diversity. People coming from different backgrounds pave way for
diverse workforce. A diverse workforce is important as it provides overall performance of
superior quality. With the workforce becoming more diverse day by day companies need to
come up with innovative management strategy that will ensure a healthy work environment
for everyone that pave for successful operations of the company in order to generate profits
(ANJORIN and Jansari, 2018). This paper sheds a light on the cultural diversity in the
workforce of the company Zain Group and the challenges of diversity in the workforce.
Discussion
Brief overview of the company
Zain Group is a mobile telecommunication company. The company was founded in
the year 1983. The company was founded in Kuwait as MTC and was later rebranded as Zain
in the year 2007. The key people of the company are Managing Director of the company,
Henri Kassab and the Chairman Ahmad Al Tahous. The company currently dominates the
market of Middle East, operating in 8 countries in the Middle East and also operates in North
Africa. The company is very popular and has about 50 million active users (Zain.com, 2019).
The net income of the Zain Group is $155 million making it one of successful companies of
Kuwait.

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Multi-cultural characteristics of the Zain Group in its international operations
The current workforce of the company the Zain group is culturally highly diversified.
Across North Africa and the Middle East where the company operates have come up with
initiatives that encourages work diversity in the workplace. Zain group highly supports
women empowerment and has introduced an initiative, Women empowerment network. The
company believes that gender diversity in the workplace will help in improving and
developing the company. Zain Group implements strategic plans in order to ensure that
women can grow and advance their careers in this company (Zain.com, 2019). The primary
goal of the initiative was to achieve gender equality and to empower women in the company
to develop, act, succeed and lead. However, the company mainly focuses on gender equality
and there have been no initiatives that have been taken to ensure diversity of people
belonging from different caste and religion.
Multi-cultural characteristics of the Zain Group in its domestic operations
Zain Group has more than 6200 people working everyday to cater to the needs of the
customers and to make the lives better of the customers with their impeccable service. Zain
Group promotes cultural diversity in the workplace and believes that diversity in the
workplace enhances the performance of the employees that ensure the fruitful results of the
company. Zain Group promotes and supports women empowerment both in their domestic as
well as in their international operations. Zain Group believes that women have the capability
to lead organizations as the company has increased leadership positions for females in the
business. The company has been providing programs and sending women to pursue education
that will help in enhancing their skills that will be beneficial for the company (Mutairi &
Fayez, 2015). The company believes that women empowerment in their organization will
pave way for gender equality and fast-track the strategic ambitions of the company that will

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pave way for the growth opportunities, help in improving the bottom line of the company and
competitive differentiation.
Differences in organizational and professional culture
Zain Group is a successful company and very popular in the Middle East and North
Africa. The company believes in doing business ethically thus business dealings that are
undertaken by the company are undertaken with fairness, integrity and honesty. All the
employees of Zain Group along with the board members and the management are required to
maintain confidentiality of the information that has been told them and disclosure of the
information will make the person find themselves in legal trouble. The obligation of
preserving the confidential information continues after the end of the tenure of employee
members of the board or the executive manager. The company believes in secrecy so that it
can protect itself from the threats and competitors in the market.
Zain Group feels that the employees are an integral part of the organization and thus
give their employees utmost freedom to come up with creative and innovative ideas that may
be fruitful for the business and will help the business grow (Bhaya et al, 2018). The company
supports women empowerment and promotes this in the professional culture as the company
feels a diverse workforce is a more effective workforce as different people with different
mindset together come up with innovative ideas that later become beneficial for the company.
Both professional culture and organizational culture are interchangeable. Both these
cultures mainly talk about the approach, outlook and the collective values that are there
within the Zain Group. However there are same variations is to how the cultures manifest in
the different setting. The organizational culture of the company shows the ethics and the
values that the owner of the company believes in. The organizational culture of the Zain
Group is not profit motivated and they would like to follow the operations of a business in the

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way they have sent for them. However, the professional culture of the company is profit
motivated and the employees given freedom to come up with ideas is for the benefit of the
organization. Effective and efficient performance of the employees paves way for the success
of the organization.
Cultural issues in Zain Group
Zain Group has been very popular because of their products and also because of the
initiatives they have introduced to support women empowerment. Both North Africa and in
the Middle East, women have mostly been deprived of their rights and have always been
behind men irrespective of the talent, education and skills. The women in both the countries
where the company operates have mostly been victims of the patriarchal society. The
company had thought of breaking the stereotypes of women in the country. Zain Group has
supported and empowered many women to go to work and make their careers. Zain Group
has managed to create a diversified workforce that promotes and encourages gender equality.
However, Zain Group has only been focusing on women and has noticed the other
inequalities that are residing in the company. The initiative that the company has taken for the
woman is good however women do not make or build the entire workforce. The company has
failed to acknowledge the problems of the migrants and the people who are being
discriminated in the company on the basis of their caste, religion, creed and many more
(Alaslawi, 2017). There are times when people are discriminated because of the religion and
caste because of the pre conceived notion people have in their mind about different religion.
Discrimination in the workplace highly affects the employees negatively that result in the
poor performance. The poor performances of the employees pave way for the loss and the
downfall of the company.

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Leadership management issue in Zain Group
Zain Group has been working towards obtaining a diverse work culture and has been
successful to some extent with their initiatives on including women in the workforce in
managerial position to promote and support women empowerment. However there are issues
that the company is yet to focus on to obtain cultural diversity in the workplace. There are
several migrants who come to the Middle East and North Africa in search of better jobs
however the migrants are not treated properly in the country and have been discriminated.
Discrimination is relevant in these countries and it is mainly based on ethnicity, social origin
and religion. This discrimination is highly prevalent in the company in both the countries
Middle East and North Africa.
This problem has paved way for leadership problems in the company. The company
wants to introduce a new service in the industry and wants full cooperation from the
employees so that they can put their best in order to introduce the service in the market
successfully. For this the employees need to work as a team for the development of the
company. Team leader has been assigned to make sure the employees work together properly
in order to develop innovative services and make sure that the goal of the organization is
achieved. The job the leader is to maintain peace and harmony within the organization look
after the operations of the company, to ensure the employees are happy and to make effective
and efficient decisions to improve the operations of the organization and to make effective
changes if necessary to meet the goals of the organization (Babalola et al, 2018). Cultural
diversity is said to have an advantage on a company with different views and ideas cropping
up however, culture diversity in a workplace if not managed efficiently then can negatively
impact the performance of a company. This is what the team leader faced in the Zain Group
as the company had only promoted gender equality and did not enhance the diversity in the

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workplace. The team leader has been going through tough situations because of the diverse
culture in the workforce of the company and they are the following:
Cultural and ethnic differences
The world has been changing and evolving to be an equal world where everyone will
be the same. However discrimination is still prevalent in many countries and one of them is
being the Middle East. Discrimination in the workplace happens due to the difference in
religion, sex, caste, race and many more. People in working in the company often get
discriminated because of their religion and the people who are discriminated are often labeled
as the minority thus the subordinates are less welcoming (Langner, 2018). These can often
lead to quarrel that is not healthy for a work environment.
Language and Communication barriers
Embracing diversity becomes a problem when there are language and communication
differences. Middle East is region where people speak different languages that sows the
diversity of the region itself. Lanes spoken here are Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Russian and
English. People coming from different parts of the world face problems in communicating as
they are not familiar with the language and often find difficulty in communicating. It
becomes a problem for the team leader to explain and make people understand the work that
has to be done and the work that is needed to be done. Communication barriers demotivate
employees in the workforce as they are unable to communicate that makes them feel left out
that result in lack of sense of belonging among the employees (Jenifer & Raman, 2015). This
is a huge problem and the team leader should take measures to ensure there is healthy
communication between employees who are natives and who come from other parts of the
country or from some other country.

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Accepting differences of others
People tend o have a feeling that each of them are superior from others in some way
or the other. Individuals belonging from different culture have difficulty in communicating as
they people find it difficult to accept the differences (Salin et al, 2019). There are many
things that are acceptable in one culture and the same thing may not be acceptable in the
other culture. This becomes a huge problem for the people in the work place as people do not
communicate with people who are different from each other. This becomes a problem in the
workplace as people have to work in a team in order to make sure that the work is done
properly. This is the problem the leader faces as people do not want to acknowledge and
appreciate the differences between people. This becomes detrimental for the company
because it hampers the workflow and results in the downfall of the organizational
performances.
There are many benefits and challenges of a diverse workforce in an organization.
The leader of the company faces many challenges in order to maintain equality amongst the
employees because of the differences and the barriers that have been cause because of the
difference in culture. The difference in language barrier is the most difficult aspect of the
diversity in the culture of the workforce as this negatively impacts the operations of the
organizations as communication is key for the proper and effective communications. Without
proper communication it is difficult to understand the urgency and the importance of the
work that employees fail to understand that may negatively impacts the company. In the
initial stages the diverse workforce becomes a problem for the people and it is difficult to
adjust in the beginning however with time things becomes better that pave way for a positive
and a healthy work environment of the company.

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Corporate culture
Cultural diversity in the workplace has both negatives and positives. It is important to
take measures in order to eliminate the negative aspects and concentrate on the positives in
order to ensure a healthy cultural diverse work environment (Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales,
2015). It s important for big corporate like the Zain Group to take effective measures in order
to ensure cultural diversity in the workplace. Zain Group believes in equality and believes
that working equally will help in bringing fruitful ideas that can be implemented in order
enhance and develop the company that will help the company to be a huge success in the
market. The corporate culture of the company is very advanced because of the initiatives the
company has taken for women empowerment.
Recommendations
 Zain Group should take up measures that will help and be in the interest of the
migrants and people belonging from different culture and ethnicity
 The company should lay down strict rules and regulations under the business ethics
and code of the company in order to prevent discrimination in the workplace
 Effective measures need to be taken that will help employees who come from outside
to feel at home and to arouse a sense of belonging in the workplace so that they do not
feel left out and participate so that they can be productive to the company.
 Zain group needs to take up measures and initiatives that encourage communication
between the employees belonging from different culture and who speak different
languages.
 Trainings should be given to employees to understand the work culture and to learn
the basics of the language if the employee is new to the organization and do not know
the language at all

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Conclusion
In the age of globalization cultural diversity is a prominent thing and is relevant in the
workplace. Cultural diversity helps organizations in coming up with innovative ideas and
enhancing the work culture of the organization. Zain Group has made initiatives to make the
workforce equal by implementing the programs that support women empowerment however
the company needs to come up with initiatives that will help in combating discrimination on
other basis like religion that will help the company in acquiring full equality in the workforce
and effectively maintain the cultural diversity in the Zain Group to make a positive work
environment that will help employees to be productive that will pave way for the success of
the company.

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