Cultivating and Committing to Cultural Competence

By Daisy Cabrera

In today’s multicultural world, companies can’t ignore “cultural competence” — the ability to understand the intricacies, honor the differences, and work effectively with people from diverse backgrounds.

Cultural competence goes further than checking a box and incorporating DEI practices. It requires a genuine connection and conversation with the customers and communities that a company serves. And, it’s a commitment to long-term listening, learning and leveraging.

Building this awareness not only enhances brand and corporate communications, but it also helps organizations thrive. Fostering trust, loyalty and innovation is directly connected to an organization’s measurable business outcomes.

At the end of the day, employees should feel valued, customers should feel seen, communities should feel heard, and the media should feel respected. This is how organizations stand out as true leaders in crowded, competitive markets.

Why cultural competence matters

As communicators, we need to connect meaningfully with multicultural audiences. After all, demographics have shown that multicultural is the new mainstream marketing. Creating messaging that isn’t just inclusive, but relevant — messaging that truly resonates across stakeholders — is the key.

We already know that certain consumer segments over-index across distinct categories (i.e. beauty, technology, luxury brands, gaming, etc.) At the same time, many companies don’t understand how adapting to cultural nuances leads to meeting consumer demands while sustainably growing their businesses.

Cultural competence elevates brand reputation, creative approaches, and problem-solving since teams strengthen ties with diverse stakeholders. Embracing this strategic imperative benefits every aspect of a business — from employees, customers, media, and shareholders to vendors, influencers, communities, thought leaders — and ultimately, the bottom line.

Taking the cultural competence journey

Let’s explore how organizations can cultivate and commit to cultural competence.

Inclusivity leads to higher employee engagement, and lower turnover.

• Leadership leads by example, sets the tone, and visibly champions cultural competence as a core value
• Actively retain, and recruit multicultural talent — while creating employee resource groups
• Address the lack of boardroom diversity — a huge business risk
• Allocate resources for initiatives that tackle unconscious bias (i.e. regular trainings, role-playing exercises, team building activities, etc.)
• Re-structure decision-making processes across performance reviews, promotions, job descriptions, etc.
• Conduct anonymous employee surveys to encourage candid feedback

Prioritize cultural competence across all communications.

• Ensure diverse perspectives are involved every step of the way
• Elevate your audience insights, strategy, storytelling, content formats and execution
• Don’t pitch multicultural media generic news, cultivate relationships and understand their reporting needs
• Be mindful of stereotyping cultures, or showing up in a “performative” manner
• Adapt creative visuals to reflect diversity, and avoid tokenism
• Triple-check messaging for bias, or assumptions

Engage local communities, constituents and customers.

• Seek input from the multicultural communities you serve
• Connect with local organizations in authentic, impactful ways
• Ask diverse community members what really matters to them
• Support and sponsor cultural community events
• Team up on projects that make a real difference locally
• Partner with thought leaders right in your own backyard

Collaborate with content creators.

• Push your brand campaigns beyond promotional surface-level representation to reflect positive and authentic representation
• Build with multicultural influencers, don’t just contract
• Lean into nurturing genuine relationships, not just one-off deals
• Give influencers the creative freedom to tell their authentic stories, and control their narratives on their own platforms
• Let their voices lead, let their tone land, and let their content resonate
• Learn about the power of their audiences, the power of online inclusivity, and the power of brand affinity

Final tip: Cultural competence is meaningful, intentional and purpose-driven. It’s a continual learning process, and a must-have for modern companies. And, it’s not just good for today’s businesses — it’s good for building a more intercultural, interconnected future for years to come.

About Author

Daisy Cabrera is a seasoned bilingual (English/Spanish) brand and corporate communications consultant with over 25 years in public relations, mainstream and multicultural media relations, crisis communications, event management, influencer partnerships, content creation, and team leadership experience.