Project Summary: Assignment: The Value of Cultural Competence Cultural competence in an organization is having the skills and knowledge to work respectfully and effectively with people who differ from you in their abilities, ethnicity, gender and/or sexual orientation, nationality, race, religion, and/or socio-economic background. Although workplaces are becoming more diverse, people are not necessarily becoming more culturally competent. Challenges remain related to understanding and respecting those whom we perceive as different, or at the very least, with whom we are not familiar. Human Resources can, and should, play a key role in fostering cultural competence throughout the organization to improve employee skills and knowledge in building positive relationships, decreasing institutional bias, and fostering global business opportunities.