I was very fortunate that at the start of my career I worked for a corporate,
which understood that the make up of its workforce was diverse. Therefore, a need to invest in programmes, which exposed us to civility in the workplace and how beneficial this would be to the wider community and the company was apparent. At the time, it was necessary to run cultural diversity training programmes because not only was the workforce culturally diverse, but it also came from
communities that lived apart.
The only common space shared was the workplace. For many, including me, it was difficult to make the transition from how we were used to doing things, to the new workplace culture.
Schooling, tertiary training and institutions such as churches did not help much to develop the skills and competencies required to assertively survive in a culturally diverse environment, as many of these institutions were also segregated along racial lines. Consequently, people only come into meaningful contact with one another when they were all set in their ways, culturally speaking. Yet they had to work harmoniously with one another, without second-guessing and being suspicious of each other’s intentions. The burden was always left with the individuals concerned to navigate their way through the cultural and racial minefield the workplace was at the time. However, some corporates invested money, time and energy in developing and running cultural diversity programmes.
In the main, these were multinationals with headquarters in the United States, Netherlands and elsewhere, which through the implementation of the Sullivan Code* were required to actively and directly promote workplace integration. Not surprisingly these were the first ones to develop a cadre of black managers in the late 70s and early 80s, many of whom played critical and crucial roles in the pre and post 1994 South African business and political landscapes.
If all businesses could see their way to building a culture of civility in the workplace as a means of ensuring improved work efficiencies and effectiveness for themselves, they would be contributing indirectly to a society living in harmony with itself. A culture of civility would result in zero to very minimal issues to deal with based on cultural, racial, gender, sexual orientation, ablism, age, religious stereotypes and prejudice. With the advent of democracy in the wider society, everyone including captains of industry thought, with institutional discrimination gone, there was no need for cultural diversity programmes in the workplace. Nothing could be further from truth, people need to be constantly exposed to workplace civility, which includes understanding how to exercise respect, value others and work cooperatively with others consistently and sustainably.
A person well trained in conflict resolution, how to respect others and in self awareness of own needs and those of others in the workplace and how to balance these for the benefit of all, is more likely to practice these skills even when they are out of the work place, thus benefiting society immensely.
*Note: The Sullivan Principles, developed by the AfricanAmerican preacher Rev. Leon Sullivan, were developed in 1977 with one addition in 1984 to apply economic pressure on South Africa in protest of its system of apartheid and to promote political reform. Consisting of seven requirements, as a condition for doing business, the principles eventually gained wide adoption among United States based corporations. 


Musa Makhunga, Managing Director of
HR Matters
Mobile: +27 83 2516704
Fax to email : +27 86 6321426
musa@hrmatters.co.za 
www.hrmatters.co.za