Establishing Multicultural Relationship between Employees through Public Relations Activities

The differences on cultures, characteristics, and personalities among employees in multinational companies become common things. As a multinational education provider for universities in four countries: Australia, Canada, USA, and Ireland, EduCo Global also faced the same problem, especially within the marketing team members in Southeast Asia. The aim of this study is to determine problems arise due to the differences on cultures, characteristics, and personalities among employees. Besides, it also aims at determining Public Relations activities in establishing multicultural relations between employees from Southeast Asia marketing team. This research uses descriptive method with qualitative approach. Data were obtained through in-depth interview. The result of this research shows that problems occur because the employees are difficult to socialize, understand, and adapt with others. The differences in age, educational background, and gender may lead to the differences in perception and communication skill. In order to lower the number of problems caused by multicultural differences, the company used public relations activities, such as giving awards, conducting regular conference meetings, conducting tour and gathering, and coordinating internal media to facilitate communication between the employees. Those activities were conducted to maintain the performance and productivity of employees and raise their awareness to learn other cultures.