Why Do Clients Reach for Intercultural Training?

The reasons a client may be interested in intercultural training and consulting vary from client to client and can change over time.  Historically, intercultural training programs have focused on helping the family and employee adjust better to the new environment they will be immersed in.  Fear of failure has motivated clients to become involved in intercultural training – failure, which is associated with an early return by their assignees or a major mistake (an employee alienating important clients or government officials, for example; or a family in disarray due to the assignment).

Intercultural training has been seen as an important service to ensure the “happiness of the employee and family,” which at many levels leads to a better, more secure assignment.  Studies have supported this approach by demonstrating that when a spouse or child is unhappy, the employee is less likely to be effective on assignment and may return early.

Intercultural professionals have seen a shift in the prevailing wisdom about intercultural training and consulting, however, from clients and from some providers in the intercultural communication field.  While the happiness and well-being of the employee and family is an important component of their intercultural training approach, at the core of their approach is a strong focus on the business objectives of the client and assignee.

“Employees and their families are sent on assignment, or to work on an international project, to accomplish a business task,” said Theresa Kneebone, Director, Crown Intercultural Services.  “Crown Intercultural Services focus is to assist those employees in better accomplishing their business goals and objectives.  As business becomes increasingly global and competitive, companies are looking for ways to differentiate themselves and give themselves an edge over their competition. Learning to better navigate relationships and processes in a new culture can help give an employee, and consequently their employer, that edge."

Most people are chosen for their assignment, whether short-term, long-term or business travel, because they were very good at their job in their home environment.  Intercultural training endeavors to help people translate their already strong skills to be just as effective in their new environment.  Ms. Kneebone explains: “In other words, instead of trying to avoid failure, which is unlikely given the achievements of most of these managers, the training is assisting them to increase their chances of success from 80% to 100%.”  That shift can be momentous in terms of time and money to corporate clients.

A telling example is depicted in one corporate client that had a team of SAP engineers from the U.K., Germany and Belgium who were in charge of an 18-month project implementation in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. The client recognized that the learning skills of the employees in these locations in Asia were different than the audience the SAP team was used to working with.  They also saw that the stakes were high in terms of performance.  An overrun or delay would result in the loss of thousands of dollars, not to mention damaging the reputation of the managers responsible for this technology rollout.  There were also families involved who would be relocated to Asia but would not see the employees very often, due to the intensive travel schedules.  Because of all of these variables, the client contacted Crown to help with not only relocating the individuals, but also preparing them an intercultural training program for the tasks waiting on the horizon.

Crown Intercultural was able to design training that focused on familiarizing the employees with each of the countries that they would be working in; on identifying some of the challenges they might face in accomplishing their tasks; and on action planning to help them be prepared for these challenges from day one.  They were also devoted to addressing the concerns and issues of the family, as an important component of the overall success of the team members, and therefore the entire project.

By combining the business end with the human end of the relocation, the intercultural training increases the chances of success not only for the client, employee and the project, but for the family members, who also have something at stake.