Indigenous Traditions in contact with the foreign organizational policies

 Organizational policies are crafted on modern cultures and legislation which are sometimes in contrary with indigenous traditions and cultures. The conflict is very observable in Africa and other continents where certain section of society still observes traditions. For example, the company policies require that an employee should produce doctor’s letter if an employee is absent for 3 or more days. In Africa, many employees believe that certain ailments require tradition medicine to be cured. Just like doctors, the traditional healers may keep a patient for number of days in their ‘practice’. The days may exceed the number of days provided by company policies. If this happens, an employee breaches the code of conduct.

 When designing company policies, the company should take into cognisant the type of people it is operating in. Included in the cognisance should not be the customers it wants to profit from, but the employees as well who come from that society the company is operating in. The corporate image could be dented when customers realise that the company is against their traditions and cultures.

A company should make a thorough assessment of cultural and traditional dynamics before it designs policies and procedures. However, if the traditions will or works against company wellbeing and legislation, then that could be explained to the employees. Surely, the explanation is better than perception that ‘my’ culture is inferior or ‘I’ am not part of the organization.