Wesfarmers is one of the leading companies operates in Australia and New
Zealand. “Wesfarmers has grown into one of Australia's largest listed companies
and employers” (Wesfarmers 2013). The company consist of home improvement and
office supplies, supermarkets, convenient stores, department stores that
established on 1914. I’m working with the convenient store business since 2010
and company trading as Shell Coles Express that operates Australia wide. Coles
Express follows equal opportunity employer and the company consist of employees
from different cultures and they come from different countries in the world.
The culture of the company is easy to adapt because they follow set of
guidelines that respect people from different countries and cultures. When I
was started to work with Coles Express the store manager is local person and he
help me to adopt the work culture such as working with other people come from
different countries. Manager use simple English when he explaining work related
things and that helps me understand the tasks more easily and remember easily. On the first day of my shift I worked with a
person come from India and he was also international student like myself we
discuss about the personal surroundings. English the common international
language brakes the communication barrier between two countries. The work place
consist of 10 people from two different culture backgrounds western and Asian
but we share the ideas and opinions using one common language. Adopting to the
western culture is not tedious task in regards to the work and personal environment.
Tolerance and patience are the key things help in intercultural communication. Being
open minded and empathetic to people from other cultures and nationalities and letting
express the thoughts and ideas without interfering help to develop the bridge
in communicating among the different cultures. In working with the people with
different cultures body language is most important because facial expressions
eye movements are the key areas that express the person more descriptively.
When communicating with the people from different cultures let encouraging
others with head nods, eye contact, and facial expressions this known as
supportiveness in communication. In the work place we came from different cultural
back grounds but together we achieve common goal which is organization success.
In the workplace we always find the similarities among the cultures like
respect each other and work for common goal rather than finding differences
among the cultures. Speaking common foreign phrases to the relevant person such
as how are you in different languages are the common practice in my workplace. This
ensures building up good relationship with the people with different cultures. Smile
when appropriate is another important factor in intercultural communication
because when other person delivering sad news smiling is not appropriate and it
will give the wrong influence about the person. Using most common English is
one of the key success to the intercultural communication specially working
with people from different cultures with in the workplace.
References
CSU interact.
(2013, 06 03). ITC105_201360_SM_I. Retrieved from
http://interact.csu.edu.au:
http://interact.csu.edu.au/access/content/group/ITC105_201360_SM_I/Lectures/itc105_wk10.pdf
Loewy, M. E.
(n.d.). Effective and ethical communication. Retrieved from
http://myhome.cengagebrain.com.au/:
http://ng.cengage.com/static/nb/ui/index.html?nbId=15664&nbNodeId=2187602#!&parentId=2187604
wesfarmers. (2013, august
24). Retrieved from wesfarmers group:
https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/about-us/about-wesfarmers.html