Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions is a set of four cultural tendencies of a society or a community that can affect people’s mindsets, ideologies, behaviours and communication preferences. These cultural dimensions play a vital role for many company administrators and business owners who are planning to penetrate into a new market locally or internationally because understanding the inclinations of people in the environment where your business runs is instrumental to the success of your company especially when you’re disseminating a positive message about it. Here below are four of those dimensions and how can be applied to your new employer branding plan.
1) Power Distance reflects people’s perception about the importance of hierarchy, seniority and position within the society. A country with a high power distance score indicates that the way people treat one another in that country is largely affected by the roles that they play within the organization while a low power distance score indicates that how people communicate with each other is not largely affected by the office they hold.
Power distance is an important element to take into account while designing an employer branding plan in Myanmar because Asian countries traditionally have a high power distance and the workplace conduct, communication, etc are heavily influenced by people’s positions and the authority derived thereof; most international investors in Myanmar who brand their companies for recruitment purposes ought to keep that in mind and expect the employees to be submissive toward the ones they report to. This can usually be a good thing in such a way that employees can be trusted to accomplish their tasks in due course and they will most likely adhere to the direct instructions with the least possible deviation. Nevertheless, this aspect of the employees usually limits their own decision making capacity since they prefer to consult to their bosses and seek affirmation before doing pretty much anything.
2) Individualism vs. Collectivism is arguably the most important aspect of a company’s working culture and is definitely something the employers should consider while branding themselves. High individualism (low collectivism) organizations or societies are mostly team-oriented; they seek belonging and choose to identify themselves within a group. They celebrate team-oriented achievements and a sense of camaraderie is important to them. On the other hand, low individualism (high collectivism) countries have people who are more self-oriented; they’re self-driven and charged for personal achievements. Although working within a team may not pose a challenge or anything, they are particularly better at delivering their best toward a goal on their own.
Myanmar is a country with high collectivism, meaning people prefer to be within a group and deliver toward a goal collectively. They are more productive collaborating with others than working solo. Therefore, the companies, while doing employer branding, should be well aware that team-based working opportunities are something that should be reflected in the branding information, which can depict the company as an organization made up of close-knitted people working together to achieve mutual goals.
3) Masculinity vs. Femininity is another pair of cultural dimension that tells something about people’s goals and priorities in life. A country with a high masculinity score indicates that people are more concerned about materialistic achievements like money, house and car and abstract achievements like success, reputation and power. Meanwhile, high femininity societies are more oriented toward building meaningful and long term relationships, enhancing the qualities of people’s lives and nurturing a healthy society overall.
Many Asian countries including Myanmar have a high femininity score’ leading to the fact the people care about the others and forging affiliations among the society matters to them. They love to be close with their friends and family and growing as a socially capable person is something they aspire to be. This is why employer branding in a country like Myanmar should accentuate the fact that the company cares about fostering meaningful workplace relationships and intends to facilitate team-bonding experiences throughout the employees’ career trajectory within the company.
4) Uncertainty Avoidance serves as a yardstick used to determine the extent people tolerate unpredictability or ambiguity while communicating with one another. Western countries tend to score high on uncertainty avoidance, that is, people working in Western countries prefer to communicate in a clear, concise manner with the least possible ambiguity involved. They also prefer the situations to be more well-defined and properly planned out so as to minimize the uncertainties.
Asian countries with the inclusion of Myanmar have a low uncertainty avoidance; Burmese people dislike upsetting or offending others even slightly. They take into account people’s emotions and moods while trying to communicate a message and they always try their best to tailor their words to suit the circumstances. While such mode of communication may reduce tension in workplace and alleviate conflicting encounters, people can usually risk from misinformation, misguidance or imprecision and this, in turn, can adversely affect the business goals. However, while designing an employer branding program in Myanmar, it is always advised to maintain a passive-aggressive tone while delivering messages, promises and statements because a message too abrupt and down-to-earth can lead people to think that the employer is offensive or impolite.