In recent years, has grown into a company with over a thousand employees, all spread across 35 countries. Even before the pandemic, global remote work was already ingrained in our company culture. As such, we strive to nurture our multicultural environment and make everyone feel heard, regardless of geographic or cultural background.
Over the years, we have learned many lessons and achieved great success with our multicultural teams. We are here to share our experiences and how we have overcome the challenges that come our way.
What are the advantages of a multicultural team?
For us, cultural diversity offers various benefits that allow us both to create a healthy work environment and to optimize our services. This is what we have found:
Innovative work environment
In a multicultural workplace, people arrive with different ideas and personality traits brought from their cultures and lifestyles. And more often than not, having access to multiple points of view can inspire creativity and innovative thinking.
In fact, a BCG survey found that diverse and inclusive teams are better than their average counterparts. The research was carried out in 1,700 companies from various countries.
For Emma Young, Squad Leader at , having a multicultural team means “you won’t always approach tasks or problems the same way. You have the opportunity to learn different cultures, ways of life, habits, things that are common or unusual. It helps to open your eyes and see things differently than you are used to.”
Local Market Outlook
as a company customer obsessed, we want to make sure that every customer in our 39 locations is happy. Having a multicultural team helps us understand your needs and deliver exactly that.
“From a work-related point of view, it’s really important that you can understand how different our audiences are. My team members provide me with invaluable insights into readers, their preferences and interests, helping me craft strategies tailored to each market individually.”
According to ‘s Vita Klimaitė, working with people from all over the world makes her job as SEO content manager much easier.
culture exchange
For many employees, having multiple cultures represented on the same team is also exciting. It gives us the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of our colleagues from the comfort of our homes, or wherever we choose to work. Before the pandemic, employees also had the opportunity to travel to other places and experience the local culture.
For English-Indonesian SEO translator Ariata, sharing her country in team building activities is one of her favorite parts of the job. “It makes me feel happy and proud when I have the opportunity to introduce Indonesia to my co-workers, whether it’s sharing stories, my favorite spicy foods, or photos of the Indonesian country.”
Increased productivity and profitability
A study in the Academy of Management Journal revealed a correlation between and productivity. According to the research, a growth of 1% in diversity at a technology company led to higher productivity, and each employee contributed $729 additional. The study also emphasized that companies with high diversity in upper and lower management have the best performance.
A McKinsey report on also supports this conclusion. The researchers found that companies with high ethnic and cultural diversity were more likely to perform economically 36% superior to that of their peers. When properly nurtured, multicultural diversity can have a positive impact on the vital aspects of a company. Of course, working in such an environment can also bring its fair share of downsides.
What challenges do multicultural teams face?
We have analyzed our teams for their insights to answer this question. Here are several challenges in navigating a culturally diverse environment:
communication differences
Since is a global and multicultural company, we mainly use English to communicate with each other. However, despite speaking the same language, communication barriers can arise. As we have all been raised in different cultural backgrounds, it is natural that the way we express ideas and opinions will also vary.
As a squad leader, Emma finds it difficult to navigate this aspect, especially when practicing one of our principles: courage and frankness . “With the cultural differences that our team has, each culture has very different approaches when it comes to talking to your manager, colleagues, team leaders, etc. So figuring out what to say and in what way takes a bit of time.”
Without proper knowledge and preparation, messages can get lost in translation and have unintended consequences. Therefore, it is always important to adjust your communication style, whether you are the one receiving or giving the feedback.
Cultural differences
In addition, there may also be obstacles to understanding that what works in one culture may not work in another. Such was the experience that Ariata faced when she started working at . As a translator, she must be able to localize various marketing copies for the Indonesian market. However, there were several instances where she thought the materials themselves would not work with the audience.
“In Indonesia, we don’t really have what is called a ‘summer sale’ because the weather is hot all year round. So I thought launching a campaign like that wouldn’t work here. It took them a while to make them understand that some campaign ideas would have to be readjusted.”
This problem can occur in other facets of a company. For example, when hiring someone from another country, the skill set and job expectations of the local talent pool may differ from where they live. These aspects are crucial to consider before posting a job online.
Time zone conflicts
For remote multicultural teams, finding the right time to have a meeting can be a hurdle, especially with people living on a completely different continent. “Any type of team meeting we schedule is late at night for some and very early in the morning for others. It makes building quality teams and holding large meetings a difficult task,” says Vita.
Time zone conflicts can also make it difficult to work on time-sensitive tasks. If an employee needs immediate assistance or a second opinion, he or she may have to wait several hours for a response from co-workers.
How unifies a multicultural team
At , we believe that the benefits of a multicultural work environment outweigh its challenges. Therefore, we are always looking for the best ways to nurture culturally diverse teams and refine these practices as we grow.
While there are many ways to accomplish this, we believe the best practice is to start with the company principles. These are values that govern how everyone in the company should complete their tasks and make decisions at the individual, team and organizational levels, regardless of their background and appearance.
“The Principles are a constant metric for evaluating people and their performance. We all have personal preferences, personality traits, and cultural aspects that shape who we are. Having principles helps unify our differences and align with ‘s goals and vision,” says Laura Želvytė, our content production team leader.
While each principle has its own function, it plays an important role in bridging the gaps as long as there are different perspectives and approaches. For Laura, it is a goal that unites us all.
“Customer obsession is the understanding that we all work to help our customers and improve their online journeys. We apply who we are, how we think, what we do to produce the best possible result for our clients. All the other principles tie in and further support the customer obsession.”
There are several ways we strengthen ‘s values in our multicultural teams. One is to hold a team-level workshop every quarter and have an open discussion about what the principles mean to each person. “These workshops help us all get on the same page. We are all individuals with different life and work experiences, so doing them helps us understand the why and how behind the principles,” says Laura. She also recommends incorporating the company’s principles one-on-one with direct reporting and employee training programs. That way, they can focus on the areas they struggle with the most and find ways to improve.
Best practices for working with culturally diverse teams
In addition to using the company principles as a unifying guide, here are some tried-and-true tips for working with and managing multicultural teams:
Prioritize psychological safety
it is one of the metrics we use to measure a successful team. Introduced by behavioral scientist Amy Edmondson, it refers to how safe employees feel when taking risks, asking for help, or pointing out problems in the workplace. In a multicultural team, psychological safety is vital to support diversity and inclusion. When each member can express himself with confidence without suffering punishment, he will feel more welcome and valued by the company.
Psychological safety allows you to harness the key benefit of a diverse work environment: innovation. If everyone feels safe to express their opinions, they will be more open to experimentation and making mistakes, which can lead to creative results.
At , one of the ways we strive for psychological safety is through . We regularly send them to employees to check their willingness to take risks, the trustworthiness of their peers, understanding of team structure, and job satisfaction. Doing so allows us to understand which areas we need to improve. Each team leader will have access to the results, so they can have an open conversation about how to best support the needs of their members.
has an open mind
In the book The 7 habits of highly effective peopleStephen Covey writes: “Seek first to understand and then…
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