HANDLING MULTICULTURAL PEER DIVERSITIES

Introduction
This lesson will focus on the internal application of what has been discussed previously. Peers
are people too, just like customers or guests, except that peers are with you 8 hours a day, five
days a week, or at the minimum, 170 hours a month. In many cases, you spend more time with
your peers than with your love ones and friends.
Diversity among peers can either be much easier to handle or perhaps much more difficult to
take. In both cases, it is because of the amount of time you spend with them. If you are a
tourism professional, you should be able to handle peer diversity easily.

Here are the 10 ways tourism professional should handle peer diversities.
1. In the workplace and among peers, the first rule is to always be yourself. This was the last
rule in the preceding lesson. Why is it the first in this lesson? If there is one behavior peers
detest the most, it is when someone in their team is trying their best to be someone else
instead of just being themselves. This behavior in colloquial lingo is referred to as people who
are “plastic”. So, even before being able to handle peer diversities among the members of your
team and all the other employees of your company, you must be able to deal with your own
diversity issues. When someone is generally considered a “plastic” person, that means they are
hiding the truth beneath their persona. In this case, they will be a big failure in the aspect of
being able to successfully deal with peer diversities because they, themselves, are having an
issue in dealing with their own. Therefore, rule number one is non-negotiable. It would be
useless exercise to go through rule 2 to 10 without first ensuring rule number 0ne is indeed the
first and most important aspect in handling peer diversities.
2. Be a team player. Successful teams equal successful companies. You are one among many
team members of diverse personalities. The general idea team building is that there can be
unity even in diverse settings. The challenge with teams is that, sometimes, one team member
can pull down the entire team by behaving against the standard norms of team behavior. When
a team member does this, it is usually because they are having issues with some team
members, and instead of dealing with the issue professionally, they deal with the issue
personally, putting the whole team at risk of failure. Becoming a team player simply means you
must know how to deal with all kinds of team issues, including diversity issues. A team member
who has a problem accepting the differences in opinions and personalities of other team
members should be transformed to be able to belong, otherwise, the only remaining option for
this misbehaving member is dismembering.
Here are five characteristics of a good team player.
 He/ She embraces collaboration.
 He/ She holds himself/ herself accountable.
 He/ She committed to the team.
 He/ She is flexible.
 He/ She is positive and supportive.
3. Become an inspiration to others. By behaving in a manner that will send signals to other that
you are highly mature and caring person, your peers will look up to you and aspire to be like
you. The more members in your team start inspiring one another, the more the team will be
cohesive and ready for any challenges ahead, including the sensitive handling of issues
surrounding peer cultural diversities. These issues are real and, sometimes, if not properly
addressed, can be causes for dis-function; and dis-function is something companies guard
against daily, because dis-function leads to low productivity and low morale.
4. Engage your peers in cultural diversity discussion. The more you intelligently discuss the
different aspects of diversity like nationality, regions, languages, dialects, religion, practices,
traditions, and sex among your peers, the better you will understand one another. The more
you will learn to respect one another. The more you will know about each other’s differences.
The idea being that life is so diverse; that being a Filipino and a Catholic are not only things out
there; and that because your peer is from Sulu and a Muslim; does not mean they are less than
you. The best knowledge we can learn about these diversities can be gained by engaging our
peers who are diverse and sincerely asking them about these diversities, not because you want
to say you are better, but because you want to accept the realities of these diversities and
choose to respect all.
5. Become a walking Wikipedia. This was rule number 8 in the previous lesson. Why should it
be rule here too? A “walking Wikipedia” only regarding learning more about countries,
provinces, nationalities, languages, dialects, cultures, traditions, and religions. By so doing, you
will be able to have meaningful conversation with your peers as often as possible. It would be
wonderful experience to hear first-hand stories about fiestas and how our peers celebrate
these in their respective towns or cities. The Philippines has some of the most colorful and
happy festivities all year round. We are expert about the traditions of our towns and cities, but
sometimes, are totally ignorant about others. Learning about these from from your peers can
help you know our country more. By knowing more about our country, you become a better-
informed tourism professional.

6. Find time for your peers, even outside of work. Working eight hours a day, five days a week
can be grueling sometimes. You and your peers can try your best to also relax and enjoy
yourselves over dinner or a cocktail party every now and then. It is a very good idea to join this
bonding time outside the workplace because all of you will be in a happy and celebratory mood.
Many times, peers make it a rule not to talk about their work, but this is easier said than done.
These get-togethers are a very good way of getting to know your peers in a more informal
setting. Peers usually open up about themselves more easily in these occasions. These sessions
must become a venue for getting to know more about one another, thus, developing a deeper
understanding of the different personalities in the team. Here, stronger bonds are developed.
This bonding goes a long way in the nurturing of our relationship.

7. Include short three-minute diversity quotes/learnings in everyday meetings. In the tourism

8. Around the world in 12 months. The human capital department of your company should
consider a program whereby all staff activities for a particular month will delve around a
selected country. The selection of these 12 countries should be done based on their
representation in the workplace or the top 12 countries represented in the workplace. Staff
activities, like the monthly birthday celebration, can be programmed with fun learning activities
and games about these countries. From experience, this approach is highly popular with the
citizens from these countries contributing a great deal. The program also keeps motivation high
among all staff because they always have something new to look forward to. The games also be
big surprise. This is a very informal and fun way to learn more countries, their people, their
customs, and their traditions. This program is a winner for multicultural diversity awareness.
9. Be discreet and sensitive. Diversity issues like religion and sex are among the most sensitive
of all diversities. Many would rather keep their religion or sexual life as private as possible,
without having to share the details of these with their peers, You must always be discreet and
sensitive in cases of this nature and ensure you respect their stand on these matters. When
faced with these peers who value their privacy, especially in these issues, respecting their
wishes and being discreet is the best way to go. Never force the issue of wanting to know. In
the first place, it is none of your business.

10. Celebrate each other’s diversities. It is only when you start sincerely celebrating each
other’s diversities that you can say you have conquered the multicultural diversity challenges in
the workplace. Celebration means total acceptance and understanding of our differences
without any judgment, without any comparison, without any rating as to who is excellent, very
good, average, marginal or poor. Celebration means entering and praying in mosques even if
you are Catholic when invited by your Muslim friends. Celebration means attending LGBTQ
party when invited by your LGBTQ friends. Celebration means standing in attention when the
national anthem of your friend’s country is being played during an occasion you have been
invited to by this foreign friend. At the end of the day, we are all one people living in one world.
Our world now no longer has borders because of the facility of reaching out to one another.
Thus, it makes it easier to easily cross boundaries filled with diverse peoples, diverse cultures
and traditions, and diverse religious and spiritual practices. It is time we celebrate our
borderless diversities.

_____________________________________________________________________________