Company culture is not defined by core values posted on your office wall. Developing company culture requires careful planning, hard work, and resources. It is an endless journey for a firm that desires to continually enhance a healthy work environment.
When building company culture, respect is one very important value to consider. According to Christine Porath, professor of management at Georgetown University, “Being treated with respect was more important to employees than recognition and appreciation, communicating an inspiring vision, providing useful feedback — or even opportunities for learning, growth, and development.” (“The Leadership Behavior That’s Most Important to Employees”, Harvard Business Review)
Respect in Philippine company culture
Respect is a core value in Philippine culture. It is ingrained in the Filipino language through the words “po” and “opo” and the prefix “paki”, which equates to “please”. Respect is considered second nature especially when dealing with elders, women, and persons in authority. This can make it easier for companies to instill respect inside their workplaces.
According to Great Place to Work, “Respect is the extent to which employees feel valued by the organisation, by assessing the levels of support, collaboration and care that they experience through management’s actions towards them, and that of their peers.”
So how does respect figure in a culturally diverse workplace such as an outsourcing company in the Philippines?
Diversity in outsourcing companies
The Philippines is a melting pot of cultures, such as American, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Australian. Filipinos are friendly to other cultures and tend to be curious about foreign cultures. They also generally welcome diversity in race, gender, beliefs, age, etc.
These factors make it easier for the Philippine BPO industry to deal with diversity. Therefore, while outsourcing companies are culturally-diverse workplaces, it does not cause major problems for them. BPO employees have to deal with clients and customers from foreign cultures, but they are usually polite and respectful toward superiors, teammates, or customers.
Nurturing respect and diversity in Philippine outsourcing companies
Building respect and cultural diversity can be challenging to deal with in any company. This is especially emphasised in outsourcing companies.
However, outsourcing companies in the Philippines are better able to deal with those components of company culture because: (1) respect is ingrained in Philippine BPO employees and (2) diversity is generally welcomed by outsourcing workers.
This is one of the reasons why the Philippines has become a top outsourcing location for companies in various countries, including Australian firms. Other reasons are:
- Cost-effectiveness
- English fluency
- High-quality skills
- Excellent work ethic
- Time-zone neutral
If you want to find out how you can outsource in the Philippines, we would love to help. Profitmaster allows businesses to outsource administrative, IT, and other services, and we offer a free, no-commitments consultation. Profitmaster is an Australian-owned business that is located in Clark Freeport Zone – famous business district in the Philippines Just click here to send us a message.