Recruiting, Retaining and Promoting Culturally Different Employees

by Don Rutherford and Lionel Laroche

Book Overview

The USA and Canada welcomes every year significant numbers of immigrant professionals who have high levels of formal education (Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D.) as well as extensive experience; yet a significant fraction of these immigrants are unemployed or underemployed. The purpose of this book is to help US and Canadian organizations make full use of the significant human capital that immigrants represent. This book will help organizations:

- Modify their recruitment and selection process to avoid rejecting culturally different candidates for reasons that are not related to their ability to do the job
- Develop and promote culturally diverse employees to ensure that they retain and capitalize on the new ideas that these employees bring

Highly- practical the book is divided into two parts: -

- The first part focuses on the recruiting process. It takes readers through the recruiting process used by most organizations and examines why cultural differences can throw this process off . The discussion is framed by an introduction explaining what cultural differences are and a description of cross-cultural communication issues and suggested solutions.
- The second part examines the retention and promotion of culturally different employees. The turnover of culturally different people is often higher than average and they are proportionately less represented in the higher echelons of large organizations. The work examines the root causes of these issues and proposes solutions that individuals and organizations can implement.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 075068240X
• ISBN13: 9780750682404
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 298 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

An old shoe, worn with comfort and affection

Two Canadians, veteran intercultualists, Lionel Laroche and Don Rutherford, one from either end of the continent, have written a book that is both more than it seems and less than it appears at first sight. Titled to address the employment management of culturally different employees, the book is in fact much more, a full course in multicultural communication and management that could be even used as a textbook in such courses in an academic setting. It serves, as well, as a solid, learn-it-yourself manual for managers who may have scant acquaintance with multicultural issues and no operational skill sets for dealing with cultural difference. At once comprehensive in scope and simple in language and organization, this volume answers just about all of the questions one could ask about how to carry out managerial responsibilities toward newcomers to the workforce from around the world. At the same time, the book is perhaps somewhat less than what the browsing manager or HR specialist might be looking for when first taking it from the bookstore shelf or spotting it on the Internet. Recruiting, Retaining and Promoting Culturally Different Employees is not a book about managing diversity in the workforce as we commonly understand it. In other words, the focus is on cultural difference, largely as it is found in immigrant populations and the impatriate workforce, and very specifically in North America. It does not address in any significant or direct way the cultural issues that are faced by those who are described as target groups within the native populations of Canada and the USA, viz., First Nations/American Indians, people of color, women, older workers, those with disabilities, etc., though these may fall into some of the cultural dimensions under discussion. Rather Laroche and Rutherford center their efforts on effectively bringing and keeping non-native newcomers in organizations. They addresses bias from the functional point of view, i.e., what the uninitiated recruiter or manager is likely to do and think, and the uninitiated job-seeker or employee is likely to do and think. There is no moralizing, no unnecessary political correctness, and no guilt trip. It is not a diversity management or employment equity book in the common sense of these words in North America. This having been said, the title is on target. Recruiting, Retaining and Promoting Culturally Different Employees is literally about these three activity sets in respect to the non-native population. The first chapter is the obligatory discussion of what culture is and how it works. This is followed by attention to the recruitment and selection processes, such things as finding, screening, and interviewing candidates from newcomer groups. One of the book's merits shows up early in these chapters as the authors pay attention not only to what the manager or employer must do to be effective but also providing advice and tips for those who are the job seekers and eventual empl