Respondents to the 2008 Global Relocation Trends Survey Report conducted by GMAC rated cultural awareness training as the third most important initiative to increase ROI of international assignments. Despite these findings, many international companies are reluctant to provide cross cultural awareness training to their employees prior to relocating overseas, working across cultures, negotiating with foreign companies or employing international staff.
Those in favour of cross cultural awareness training will say that a lack of the cultural sensitivity it provides can result in a number of challenges when dealing with other cultures. These may include miscommunication, misinterpretation and perceived misbehaviour in international working settings which can lead to breakdowns in negotiations or business relations, diminished performances or unsuccessful overseas operations. Those who believe in the value of intercultural training programmes will therefore argue that this helps employers and employees to acquire the necessary skills to ease and overcome challenges rooted in cultural differences.
On the other hand, those who doubt the benefits of cultural awareness training will argue that, while it naturally comes at a cost, its benefits are difficult to quantify in monetary units, thus making it an investment difficult to justify, particularly in the current economic climate. They may claim that while international business ventures’ success can and should be measured in terms of real costs and benefits, culture is something too abstract to be measured, and its impact too difficult to assess.
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As a global provider of cross cultural awareness training and consulting to major international organisations around the world, Communicaid has a good understanding of this challenge and has designed an approach that aims to make the outcome of cultural awareness training as tangible as possible to organisations.
Communicaid’s Impact Management process involves several key stages starting from before the training has even been delivered through to several weeks after training has been completed. Through a variety of questionnaires, assessments, interviews with delegates and line managers and action plans which can be integrated into personal development plans, Communicaid will design tailored options for every client based on what they need and the time they can realistically dedicate to evaluating the impact.
In an article about measuring the benefits of cultural awareness training programmes such as Communicaid’s Cross Cultural Training Middle East or Intercultural Training India programmes, John Schieman wrote, “Quantifying the business improvement from cross-cultural interventions is challenging, however it is clear that cross-cultural competence has the potential to make a significant contribution to top and bottom line results as well as individual performance.”
While pre and post-training impact evaluation cannot provide concrete monetary figures it does illustrate the importance of cultural awareness training and how it has helped to improve the corporate image and relationships with international counterparts. Companies doing business on a global scale must consider the high value of cultural awareness training to help reduce the risk of international business, saving them time and money in the long-run.
© Communicaid Group Ltd 2010
