A multicultural remote team is a group of racially and ethnically diverse employees working together digitally to complete various projects and tasks. These employees often come from various geographic locations and use technology to stay connected with each other and their employers.
Each brings their unique perspectives, experiences, and expertise to the table, contributing to an inclusive workplace with diverse talent.
While a multicultural remote team harbors diversity and inclusivity, there are a few communication and collaboration challenges that managers need to be mindful of. Factors such as cultural differences, language barriers, and time zone discrepancies need to be effectively managed in order to take advantage of the creativity, innovation, and problem-solving capabilities of cross-cultural remote teams.
In this blog, we’ll explore strategies for managing a multicultural remote team and provide tips to successfully leverage the diverse talent pool that’s available.
Benefits of a Multicultural Remote Team
A multicultural remote team better understands and caters to global clients since they have a deeper understanding of other cultures, languages, and market trends. The unique cultural perspectives of your diverse team offer diverse problem-solving approaches and fresh ideas.
Diverse remote teams lead to higher employee retention. Show respect and inclusion for the uniqueness of all your employees and celebrate their diverse backgrounds to boost employee engagement and morale. When an employee feels valued and heard, there is a higher employee job satisfaction and willingness for professional development.
Strategies for Managing a Multicultural Remote Team
Managing a multicultural remote team has its own set of challenges. However, cultural awareness, communication, collaboration, and inclusivity strategies enable you to navigate challenges as they arise.
Here are a few strategies to consider when managing your multicultural remote team:
Cultural Awareness
One of the most important strategies for managing a multicultural remote team is cultural awareness. It is described as the awareness and acceptance of a person’s culture. Having empathy and respect for one another helps a team better communicate and collaborate with co-workers.
Educate the team and encourage employees to openly express themselves without being judged for their cultural differences. Host training sessions and provide resources to transform your remote workspace into an inclusive one.
Here are two ways to build a culturally aware workspace:
-
Get to Know Team Members: The easiest way to learn more about other cultures is by respectfully asking questions and getting to know the person. The team can create a list of ways to support each other in a respectful and culturally appropriate manner. Despite being a remote team, employers are encouraged to host virtual team meetings, coffee breaks, and team-building activities to build trust and connections with each other.
-
Organize Sensitivity Training: Foster cultural awareness in your remote team by holding cultural sensitivity training and diversity awareness programs. These programs will shed light on appropriate behaviors, attitudes, and mannerisms. For example, in the Western hemisphere, a thumbs up is a sign of approval and is commonly used for informal business communication. However, in many parts of the world, such as parts of Italy and Greece, a thumbs-up is considered a rude gesture.
Communication
Communication barriers are common in most cross-border teams. This is why all team members need to be mindful of the language, tone, methods, and verbal and non-verbal cues used while communicating with each other. Since all forms of communication happen virtually in a remote team, many team members miss out on non-verbal cues or language tones that they would experience during in-person communication. In fact, the art of inclusive communication is very prominent in today’s workforce since it helps create an environment where everyone feels welcome, respected, and appreciated.
Employees from various countries and backgrounds make a diverse, multicultural team, and English may not be the first language for everyone. For this reason, avoid using slang, jargon (unless industry-specific), and region-specific technical terms. By doing so, all team members easily understand and participate.
Collaboration
The goal for any team, remote or not, is for all members to work cohesively to achieve a common goal. One practical strategy to ensure effective collaboration amongst all members of your multicultural team is to use collaborative tools.
Cloud-based platforms, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive, allow all team members to share files, documents, and data. Communication tools such as Zoom, Slack, or Miro facilitate communication, brainstorming, and feedback. This will enhance the team's productivity, creativity, and engagement while offering a healthy work-life balance that allows them to connect and work on their projects anytime and from anywhere.
Inclusion
Employees who work remotely often report feeling lonely. In fact, 21% of remote employees named loneliness as a significant struggle for their remote jobs. Employers need to build a company culture where all employees feel included.
Inclusive communication practices that consider language preferences and encourage open communication channels create safe spaces for team members to express their thoughts and ideas. Employers can also create an inclusive environment for their remote teams through fun company virtual events and include them in critical decision-making processes that impact them and their work.
Four Tips for Managing Diverse Teams
Remote teams consist of employees from various walks of life. By accommodating their differences and promoting cultural awareness, businesses can foster a multicultural team that provides employees with a respectful and dynamic space to grow.
Promote Cultural Sensitivity
Create a harmonious and productive work environment by promoting cultural sensitivity amongst your remote teams. Cultural sensitivity in a remote setting is when all members of the team show a willingness to learn and acknowledge the differences in opinion, experience, traditions, and cultures other team members have.
Cultural sensitivity is achieved through diversity awareness, cultural training, and an accepting environment.
Diversity Awareness
In Canada, the Canadian Human Rights Act promotes equality and diversity. It emphasizes the need to provide equal job opportunities to all, irrespective of their race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, disability, or offense conviction. Employers that are compliant with diversity and inclusion employment laws lead by example and promote diversity awareness within their businesses and teams.
Provide Cultural Training and Resources
Whether it’s through online courses, webinars, workshops, or educational programs, cultural training benefits the entire team. Cultural training helps prevent misunderstandings, promote sensitivity, and raise awareness of cultural differences. For businesses that offer services and products to international consumers, cultural training helps meet the needs of international customers based on their cultural preferences.
Foster a Sense of Belonging and Teamwork
Create a cohesive and high-performing team where employees feel a sense of belonging.
Compared to an in-person work environment, fostering a sense of belonging and teamwork is challenging in remote settings. This is because employees can’t create informal connections. However, making employees feel like they belong and implementing smoother team operations make a difference.
When team members can express their opinions and are actively heard, an environment of belonging and teamwork is developed. Recognition and appreciation are quick and easy ways to foster a sense of belonging.
Accommodate Employee Differences
The beauty of working with a remote multicultural team is that every member of your team brings unique experiences, skills, knowledge, and cultural diversity. But with cultural diversity comes time zone challenges, language barriers, and work style differences. In order to address these differences and use them to your advantage, team leaders need to make accommodations.
Time Zones
Spread across different time zones and multiple countries, real-time connectivity is a challenge in global remote teams. When scheduling meetings or assigning deadlines, be mindful of varying time zones and how they can impact an employee's work-life balance. Time zone convertors and meeting planners are great tools to use to accommodate global team members since they automatically adjust meeting times based on participants' time zones to avoid inconvenience.
Time zone differences also help your business cater to a global market of prospects and customers.
Work Styles
Whether you work in a local team or a multicultural global team, every employee has a different work style. A working style is how an employee tackles projects and tasks based on their character traits. Work styles fall under four categories:
-
Idea-oriented - Team members that are idea-oriented are ambitious, influential, visionary, and resilient.
-
Logical - Team members that are logical are methodical, analytical, goal-oriented, and focused.
-
Detail-oriented - Team members that are detail-oriented are organized, diligent, careful, and reliable.
-
Supportive - Supportive team members are emotionally intelligent, diplomatic, sociable, and helpful.
By identifying the working styles of each team member in a multicultural remote team, employees can better support each other and use each other's strengths to accomplish the task at hand.
Leverage Technology for Collaboration
Multicultural remote teams rely on technology for all aspects of their work. From communicating with team members to brainstorming and completing projects, there is a high dependency on technology. This is why remote teams need to leverage the right technology for effective collaboration.
Video-conferencing tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams allow face-to-face collaboration and bridge the gap between geographical team divides. Project management tools such as Asana and Trello allow teams to collaborate and stay organized asynchronously. Instant messaging platforms enable team members to facilitate real-time communication and connect more easily and quickly.
Clear Communication Channels and Protocols
In a multicultural remote team, communication is done through emails, virtual meetings, and instant messaging platforms. Because of the limited communication channels, cultural nuances and non-verbal cues are easily overlooked. Clear communication channels and protocols are a necessity for cross-border remote teams.
Open Dialog
Active listening is a crucial component of open dialog. Being present in a conversation and acknowledging the viewpoints of your team will lead to constructive conversations.
When having an open dialog with members of your remote team, high and low-context cultures are important factors to consider. High and low-context cultures refer to how important contextual cues are in interpreting a message. High-context cultures are communicated based on body language, tone, and overall context, while low-context cultures are more straightforward and explicit in communication.
Team Feedback
As with any form of communication, feedback is crucial. When your team requests feedback, it’s a sign of trust and a commitment to improve the process. By regularly asking your team to provide feedback, cultural sensitivity and awareness can also be enhanced.
Build a Multicultural Remote Team with Borderless AI
Building a multicultural remote team has many benefits, but it also takes up time and resources. This is why an Employer of Record (EOR) is a great option for remote businesses to streamline global operations and meet legal compliance needs.
An EOR acts as the legal employer of your global remote hires by taking up HR and administrative responsibilities, such as drafting inclusive employment contracts and administering payroll and benefits, while you retain control over core business functions.
With Borderless AI, grow your team in 170+ countries around the world and take advantage of our unrivaled customer experience and first-ever AI agent for global employment, Alberni. Alberni answers global employment questions, generates employment contracts, and more in seconds.
Contact us today and discover how you can quickly and compliantly build your global team with no upfront costs.
