Holiday Inn: A Report on Managing Cultural Diversity in the Workplace

This report provides a critical evaluation of theories and concepts associated with managing cultural diversity, focusing on their application within the context of Holiday Inn. It explores the impact of globalization on business operations and the importance of cultural diversity in meeting global demands and enhancing employee welfare. The report analyzes models of cultural diversity, such as cultural awareness, knowledge, sensitivity, and competency, and how Holiday Inn utilizes these models to create a competitive advantage. It also examines Hofstede's cultural dimensions and their influence on organizational policies. The study further investigates the strategies Holiday Inn employs to leverage workplace diversity, including the growth of the minority workforce and the integration of organizational objectives with employee needs. The report concludes by assessing the effectiveness of these strategies in fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace within a global hospitality environment.

MANAGING CULTURE
DIVERSITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Critical evaluation of theories and concepts associated with managing cultural diversity.........1
Strategies to utilize workplace diversity to gain competitive advantage in Holiday inn.............9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Globalization has developed the economy significantly by connecting business practices
to analyse, create and meet global demand. Business operations has been developed and refined
to create a significant impact on organizational functioning for managing global business factors.
Integration of different economies and cultural factors demanded an effective consideration of
the term cultural diversity. According to Kuhnlein, Erasmus and Spigelski, (2009) culture
diversity refers to developing different cultures and practices within an organization and
respecting the differences prevailing to enhance employee welfare and organizational
development. Managing diversity within the work place is one of the leading factor which helps
the business units in creating an effective impact on overall growth and development of the
business unit (Van der Veen, 2008).
Present report develops an in depth study regarding the factors which impact diversity
within the business unit. It will analyse various theories and concepts regarding cultural diversity
and its impact on the organizational working. Holiday inn is one of leading organization which
significantly serves the changing needs of its guests and develops services to create high
consumer satisfaction. The study will analyse and evaluate the practices adopted by Holiday Inn
to efficiently manage cultural diversity in the global economy.
MAIN BODY
Critical evaluation of theories and concepts associated with managing cultural diversity
Concept
Developing business operation has enhanced the needs, demands and expectation of the
consumers from the business units. Globalization has created wide impact on growth and
development of organizational functioning. The contours of business organizations are
expanding from local to global dimension crossing the geographical boundaries (Van der Veen,
2008). To integrate the business objectives of growth and prosperity management focuses on
efficiently analysing the cultural needs of the consumers and employees as well.
1 | P a g e

Illustration 1: Dimensions of culture diversity
(Source: Dong, 2012.)
Human resource management is one of the crucial resource of the companies which helps
the businesses in attaining predetermined objectives. Increasing demand for managing people
from various cultures and values has helped in developing organizational functioning. The
concept of cultural diversity promotes large business enterprises in developing a positive tool for
social and organizational engineering which aims at solving and preventing group dynamic
issues efficiently. Every organization focuses on managing diversity factors efficiently to gain
positive results for business growth and development as well.
Shaffer, 2012 defines culture as set of values, norms and traditions that helps an
individual in developing perception, thoughts, behaviour and judgement regarding the situation.
Concept of cultural competency in business creates an ability to interact and develop employees
belonging to various cultures. Diversity on the other hand is the understanding of the
individuality of a person regarding various dimensions of race, religion, language, ethnicity,
gender and cultural perception (Barak, 2013).
2 | P a g e

Work force diversity has been regarded as an important issue in hospitality industry.
Managing cultural diversity within the business helps in handling internationalization,
heterogeneity and diversity dimensions regarding age, sex, age, ethnicity etc. efficiently. This
creates a participative and loyal perception for business thus developing team working, process
of information sharing and decision making for the business (Herring, 2009). Diverse work force
helps in developing team performance hence helping entity in creating an edge within the
economy. However diversity within the business may consequently trigger the risk of social
categorization, interpersonal conflicts, domination hence resulting in deteriorated performance of
individuals. On the basis of the given description it is evident that diversity management is of the
significant need of the companies. Hospitality industry is effectively focusing on evaluating the
factors and strategies which helps in developing cultural diversity within business to gain
competitive edge within the market (Ting-Toomey and Chung, 2012).
Holiday inn is one of the leading hotel chains which serve its guests all over the world. It
is well established global unit which has market its presence in more than 3400 locations. The
diverse needs of guests and employees create wide challenges for the organization. It thus
focuses on managing diverse work force to develop an effective impact on work management by
developing employee competency and organizational objectives such that the quality of services
are enhanced to attain the organizational objectives.
Model of culture diversity
Culture diversity is one of the most crucial factor for Holiday Inn. The organization
focuses on developing organizational strategies and roles to deliver quality hospitality services to
its guests in order to attain high level of satisfaction and trust form consumers. This helps
business units in creating a wide and effective impact on overall growth and development of the
business (Wrench, 2008). Holiday inn has developed an effective measures to analyses the needs
of its employees and creating favourable impact on organizational growth and development as
well. The following model has helped the company in developing cultural competency to create
competitive edge within the market.
3 | P a g e

The above model focuses on developing workforce management and cultural competency
within the organization. The four major factors that help the business unit in creating a wide and
effective impact on the growth and development of the company are discussed henceforth. Cultural awareness: This factor focuses on developing an effective impact t on the
individual factors of the employees. The awareness is related to all the measures and
actions that the business unit adopts in order to develop individual perception regarding
diversity issues within the company (Thomas and Plaut, 2008). Holiday Inn develops
cultural awareness programs by developing self awareness within the business unit. This
helps the company in creating a self identity for an individual thus helping the business
unit in creating an effective impact on organizational growth by developing a sense of
recognition for the employees. This stage of the model helps Holiday Inn in examining
the personal values and beliefs of the employees to create valid development programs
for enhancing organizational growth. Cultural knowledge: The next stage of the model focuses on understanding the higher
needs of employees and developing effective measures to attain the same. This stage of
4 | P a g e
Illustration 2: Cultural competency model
(Source: Egan and Bendick, 2008)

the model can be attained by developing contacts with employees, analysing issues and
problems faced by them and creating influential measures of evaluating barriers that may
risk uniformity of working (Egan and Bendick, 2008). Holiday inn has developed a well
structured system of developing cultural knowledge within the employees. Effective
leadership and management system of the company helps in understanding social and
cultural behaviour of the employees. Moreover psychological and biological issues of the
employees are efficiently treated and managed by the leaders to create an effective
impact on organisational growth. This helps the company in analysing the factors and
barriers which pose significant challenges for diversity management. Cultural sensitivity: The stage of cultural sensitivity focuses on creating an effective
impact on the growth and development of the organization by enhancing the values of
trust and empathy within the enterprise. Holiday inn influence team development and
group activities in order to create to develop communication and interpersonal relations.
Moreover measures such as job rotation, group tasks, effective leadership and training
and development programs etc. (Chavez and Weisinger, 2008). It helps the company in
creating a wide impact on organizational growth. Creating opportunities for equal
participation helps the employees in developing trust, recognition and respect for the
company. Holiday inn has adopted wide measures to enhance employee development
programs for the company.
 Cultural competency: This stage of the model focuses on developing structural change
within the organization such that it creates wide and effective impact on cultural
competency issues. Holiday inn has developed effective policies and regulations I order
to enhance diversity management issues and measures (Noone, 2008,). Adopting legal
framework regarding equality act and discrimination act has helped he unit in minimizing
the practices of discrimination within employees. This has also helped the enterprise in
eradicating prejudices from the organization and developing viable impact on HR growth
measures.
5 | P a g e

Hofstede developed a theory that looks at unique aspects of cultures and rates them on a
scale for comparison which helps the business unit in analysing various dimensions of culture
diversity. These helps in understanding how various countries develop the cultural factors and
how these factors help in developing the individual values and beliefs. The factors that
developed an effective impact on these dimensions are mentioned below: Individualism vs collectivism: This dimension of the model focuses on analysing the
degree of involvement of the individual within a group or an organization. Individualism
reflects low degree of social integration within the countries. The social networks in such
places are low and people tend to care about their immediate families only. Countries
such as USA, UK, India, Australia etc. follow this pattern (Shore and et.al.,
2009).Holiday inn develops protestant work ethics in order to develop individual decision
making. The employees here are trained and developed to gain the analytical skills and
create wide impact of development approach. On contrary to this collectivism refers to
high level of social bonding and loyalty. In such counties or organization high degree of
6 | P a g e
Illustration 3: Hofstede's cultural dimension factors
(Source: Ang and Van Dyne, 2015)

group task and activities are promoted. The organizational structure plays a leading role
in developing decision-making structures for the company. Power distance: This dimension of cultural factors tends to analyse the role of power
distribution within the employees. The organization with high power index creates
unequal distribution of powers within the employees. Effective superior subordinate
relationship is developed to create organizational structure (Syed and Pio, 2010.). On
contrary to this low power index reflects equal distribution of power within the
employees. Organizations develop an effective measures of decentralization to get the
work done. These cultural factors help in developing a wide impact on organizational
growth and development of the companies. Holiday Inn effectively analyses the degree of
power index in order to create policies and regulation for various locations (Joshi and
Roh, 2009). This helps the business unit in creating a positive impact on employee
development and trust. Uncertainty avoidance: This entails the factors regarding safety and security issues of the
employees. This dimension of the organizational working seeks the effectiveness of the
company in terms of level of threat within the employees regarding job security and
stability within the company. High degree of uncertainty avoidance forces the companies
to develop effective measures of job security and work force development programs on
contrary to this organizations with low level of uncertainty avoidance developing high
level of competition and job insecurity for the employees. Countries such as USA has
low uncertainty avoidance while countries such as Japan, Greece, UK has high level of
uncertainty avoidance (Kulik and Roberson, 2008).
 Masculinity vs femininity: This dimension of the theory focuses on understanding the
dominant values of the society and cultures that the companies are working in.
Masculinity refers to the factors such as money, power and success while femininity
represents factors such as quality of life. High masculinity cultures demands high thirst
for power, success and financial factors thus organizations develops the motivational
factors accordingly. These helps the employees n creating high level of trust and loyalty
for the company.
Holiday inn adopts this model to understand the values and system of working within the
countries. The policies and procedures of working are developed by the management on the basis
7 | P a g e

of various dimensions of the models. This is an effective tool for developing an influential
working system of the hotel in order to influence high degree of culture diversity.
Cultural diversity trends
Holiday Inn has established its flagship in various parts of the world and has developed a
well managed brand image within the global market. The organization has successfully
developed a system of integrating organizational objectives with employees need recognition
program (Thomas, 2012). This has helped the organization in efficiently analysing the trends of
cultural diversity within the global market. Some of the leading trends which have helped
Holiday Inn in developing business activities are: Growth of minority workforce: International human resource management issues have
developed an effective system of talent polling and management within the organization.
Increasing employment opportunities has enhanced immigrations issue within counties as
well. This helps business in creating a strong and committed team of employees.
Workforce diversity development plans has developed talent pooling measures within the
market which has resulted in growing minority workforce in business units. This has
helped the business in enhancing the productivity and creativity factors. Diversity training: Increasing trend of diversity has helped the businesses in developing
the effective system of diversity training and development programs. This has helped
organization in creating wide growth and development opportunities for immigrants and
minority working people (Pitts and Wise, 2010). This type of training educates all
employees about cultural differences so that they can understand and appreciate each
other. The purpose of sensitivity training is to teach employees how to properly act and
communicate in a corporate environment. This trend has helped the companies in
creating a wide impact on organizational growth and development. Increasing female employees: Creating high level of gender equality has helped
businesses in enhancing opportunities for growth of employees. Minimizing inequality
within the organizations has helped businesses in creating high opportunities for female
employment. Holiday Inn has developed effective measures to encourage and develop
female employment within the company overlooking the prejudice associated with the
issue. The organization has developed an effective system of female job security, safety
measures and stability as well.
8 | P a g e

 Equal opportunity trend: culture diversity management has developed a well structured
system of managing workforce diversity within the companies by giving equal
opportunities for disabled workers in the labour workforce. Holiday inn has adopted the
legislative system of adopting the employment growth within the organization by
enhancing job opportunities for disabled people on the basis of their qualification (Yang
and Konrad, 2011). This has helped the hotel in developing an effective brand image
within the global market.
 Increasing ageing employment pool of workers: the growth and development of the
business unit demands effective system of employment measures for the growth of the
company. Organizations currently are focusing on developing a talent pool of employees
overlooking the age factors. Holiday Inn has developed an effective measure of
employing experienced employees for organizational growth while fresher’s are
employed to enhance innovative working measures within the hotel (Syed and Pio, 2010).
The organization has efficiently managed the diversity issues within the workplace in
order to create a positive impact on the overall growth and development of the business
in this competitive world.
Strategies to utilize workplace diversity to gain competitive advantage in Holiday inn
Human resource management issues play crucial role in developing growth and
development within business units. These factors help the organization in creating an effective
impact on overall development of business. Managers and leaders within the organization
enhance equality and diversity management tactics to create an effective impact on productivity
of the employees in terms of quality services and employee satisfaction. The major strategies
adopted by Holiday Inn in order to develop and utilize workplace diversity as discussed
henceforth.
9 | P a g e

Illustration 4: Strategies for managing cultural diversity
(Source: Ang and Van Dyne, 2015)
 Developing communication: communication is one of the most effective tool for creating
effective diversity issues within the company. Providing information accurately and
promptly is critical to effective work and team performance of the employees. Holiday
Inn has developed highly refines and developed measures of managing communication
factors within hotels in order to minimize issues regarding confusion in roles and
responsibility issues (Pitts and Wise, 2010). Moreover well developed communication
system helps the employees in boosting their level of motivation for working within the
company. Both formal and informal methods of communication help the employees in
minimizing culture discrimination within the employees. Team Working: working in team helps in developing effective team management for the
employees. Team building strategies helps the employees in creating an effective impact
on the growth and development issues of the company. Team-building issues can become
more problematic as teams are comprised of people from a mix of these cultural types.
Effective cross-cultural team-building is essential to performance from the expected
advantages of cultural diversity in the workplace. Effective system of group dynamics
helps Holiday inn in creating a wide impact on growth and development measures of the
company. Working in teams helps employees in developing sense of recognition for the
team members thus develops a sense of trust and loyalty for the employees. However this
measures may sometime prove to be ineffective for organizational development if issues
10 | P a g e

such as dominating employees or bullying are practiced within the company (Joshi and
Roh, 2009). Thus Holiday inn has adopted a well developed measures to ensure
employee safety and effective team management. Training and development: these are the most effective and essential strategies in adopted
by the business unit to develop high level of culture diversity. Training and development
measures helps businesses in enhancing learning measures. Holiday Inn has developed an
effective system of work assessment and training need recognition which helps the
business unit analysing training needs for developing work efficiency. Moreover cross
cultural training programs helps the employees in developing low resistance to change
(Kulik and Roberson, 2008). This measures helps in preparing the workforce and for
facing the changing organizational factors. This helps in developing skills, attributes and
knowledge of the employees. Overcoming language barriers: The issues of language create a wide impact on
organizational performance and productivity as well. Organizations in the modern
business operations has developed effective system of overcoming language issues of the
employees in order to develop organizational growth measures. Recruitment ad selection issues: Holiday inn has developed an effective system
recruitment and selection programs which has helped the organization in employing
talented pool of employees. This has helped the business in developing an edge within
the market as employees of the company helps in creating an effective impact on growth
and development measures of the company. Effective policies for recruitment and
selection help the business in creating effective impact on talent pooling and quality of
services as well.
 Relocation: This is one of the most strategic measures of managing cultural diversity
within the global economy. Relocation is the strategy which is adopted by the company
in order to enhance development measures of new and ineffective business location. This
measures demand high level of training creating effective system of development as well
(Noone, 2008). Highly skilled employees form one location is transferred to another
location for management of work and development of organization. This measures
focuses on overall growth and development of the company.
11 | P a g e

CONCLUSION
The above report creates an effective analysis of diversity issues within the companies.
The report evaluated the issues and ensures which significantly helps in the growth and
development of the company. It also focuses on understanding the strategies that the organization
adopts in order to create wide and influential impact on organizational growth and development
measures. Hence on the basis of current report it can be clearly determined that business has
efficiently adopted the culture diversity measures to enhance productivity and profitability of the
companies. This has helped them in developing competitive edge within the market.
12 | P a g e

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Ang, S. and Van Dyne, L., 2015. Handbook of cultural intelligence. Routledge.
Barak, M. E. M ., 2013. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Bellini, E.,and et.al., 2013. Cultural diversity and economic performance: evidence from
European regions. In Geography, Institutions and Regional Economic Performance. pp.
121-141.
Chavez, C. I. and Weisinger, J. Y ., 2008. Beyond diversity training: A social infusion for
cultural inclusion. Human Resource Management. 47(2). pp. 331-350.
Dong, X ., 2012. Culture diversity and elder abuse: implications for research, education, and
policy. Generations, 36(3). pp. 40-42.
Egan, M. L. and Bendick, M ., 2008. Combining multicultural management and diversity into
one course on cultural competence. Academy of Management Learning & Education.
7(3). pp. 387-393.
Herring, C ., 2009. Does diversity pay?: Race, gender, and the business case for diversity.
American Sociological Review. 74(2). pp. 208-224.
Joshi, A. and Roh, H ., 2009. The role of context in work team diversity research: A meta-
analytic review. Academy of Management Journal. 52(3). pp. 599-627.
Kuhnlein, H. V., Erasmus, B. and Spigelski, D ., 2009. Indigenous peoples' food systems: the
many dimensions of culture, diversity and environment for nutrition and health. Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Kulik, C. T. and Roberson, L., 2008. Common goals and golden opportunities: Evaluations of
diversity education in academic and organizational settings.Academy of Management
Learning & Education, 7(3). pp. 309-331.
Noone, J ., 2008, July. The diversity imperative: Strategies to address a diverse nursing
workforce. In Nursing Forum. 43 (3). pp. 133-143.
Pitts, D. W. and Wise, L. R ., 2010. Workforce diversity in the new millennium: Prospects for
research. Review of Public Personnel Administration. 30(1). pp. 44-69.
Shaffer, M. S ., 2012. Public Culture: Diversity, Democracy, and Community in the United
States. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Shore, L. M., and et.al., 2009. Diversity in organizations: Where are we now and where are we
going?. Human Resource Management Review. 19(2). pp. 117-133.
13

Syed, J. and Pio, E ., 2010. Veiled diversity? Workplace experiences of Muslim women in
Australia. Asia Pacific Journal of Management. 27(1). pp. 115-137.
Thomas, K. M ., 2012. Diversity resistance in organizations. Psychology Press.
Thomas, K. M. and Plaut, V. C ., 2008. The many faces of diversity resistance in the workplace.
Diversity resistance in organizations.pp.1-22.
Ting-Toomey, S. and Chung, L. C ., 2012. Understanding intercultural communication. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Van der Veen, M ., 2008. Food as embodied material culture: diversity and change in plant food
consumption in Roman Britain. Journal of Roman Archaeology. 21.pp. 83-109.
Wrench, J ., 2008. Diversity management and discrimination: Immigrants and ethnic minorities
in the EU. Human Resource Management International Digest.16(4).
Yang, Y. and Konrad, A. M., 2011. Understanding diversity management practices:
Implications of institutional theory and resource-based theory. Group & Organization
Management. 36(1). pp. 6-38.
14