Is making eye contact a sign of respect or rudeness? Does an employee who never voices an opinion in meetings lack ideas? What does being on time mean to global teams?
The simple and not-so-simple answer is: it depends. These are examples of customs and practices that employees and managers should be aware of as they work, communicate and build relationships with people of various cultural backgrounds. Training employees on cultural competence — the ability to communicate and interact effectively with people from other cultures and perspectives — is essential to creating productive, resilient teams and promoting trust, respect and empathy in the new world of work that is increasingly more global, diverse and remote.
What Cultural Competence Means to Organizations
Promoting cultural competence in the workplace is one of the proactive steps organizations can take to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture, align values and goals across the business, and improve recruiting and retention from a wider pool of talent.
Cultural competence is not learning everything about everyone’s culture, nor is it only relevant to international organizations. Cultural competence is about being aware of how culture (including our own) can shape work values, beliefs, communication and behaviors. With awareness comes a deeper understanding of how to navigate cross-cultural differences and interact more effectively with co-workers, team members, customers, partners and vendors. Educating employees on the benefits of cultural competence also helps to reduce misunderstandings, assumptions, biases and conflicts that can lead to discrimination.
Like other communication skills, developing cultural competence is an ongoing process; a skill that employees and managers can improve upon and apply throughout their careers, as they are exposed to diverse cultures and communication styles.
The Role of Cultural Competency Training
Incorporating cultural competence adds a valuable dimension to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), soft skills and professional development programs. Exploring how concepts such as time, personal space, social roles, authority and communication affect behaviors and practices improves the way teams work together to solve problems, increase efficiencies and tap into their collective talents and experiences to achieve goals.
For example, managers need to be aware of how culture can influence a team member’s attitude and concept of time, their view on deadlines, punctuality and how they think about the past, present and future.
Personal space is another dimension of cultural competence. How far apart we stand from each other, body language and physical contact can be interpreted differently, depending on someone’s culture and gender identity. Attitudes about rules, how decisions are made, and organizational hierarchy and leadership are other areas that can vary greatly based on culture.
Training is one tool to get employees to talk about what’s new, different or unfamiliar and how individuals and teams can adapt to be more productive and avoid mistakes and confusion.
Identify Common Concepts, but Avoid Overgeneralizing
To meet the expectations of today’s learners, online training should motivate and engage with content that is relevant to the organization, its industry and work environments. And, as learners continue to tell us, training should be an enjoyable experience that helps improve their job performance, while being as brief as possible.
The topic of cultural competence offers learning and development (L&D) teams an opportunity to leverage eLearning strategies and technologies to depict modern workplaces that are diverse, multicultural and often virtual. Besides increasing engagement and retention, using real-world scenarios, interactive videos, gamification elements and assessment activities can help to connect back to the objectives of the course and build upon other related training topics.
For example, aspects of cultural competence, such as accepting and respecting differences, embracing awkwardness and active listening, align with DEI and psychological safety initiatives. That said, L&D teams should be cautious about over-generalizing. People are unique, culture is always evolving, and much of what makes up cultural identity is below the surface or unobservable.
Cultural Competence: The Key to Multicultural Communication and Collaboration
As never before, L&D and training leaders are supporting a diverse workforce, including more employees working in global, multicultural environments. Providing cultural competence training elevates employee awareness and understanding of how culture can affect every aspect of communication — from sharing ideas to solving problems. Being culturally competent is a power skill, giving organizations a competitive advantage in building teams, who can collaborate and thrive in a changing global workplace.
