Intercultural Communication - How to successfully steer diverse working environments and work teams
In this unit particular attention will be paid to the importance of conscious and considerate guidance in diverse working environments and the facets of intercultural communication in work teams.
Warm up
Intercultural situations don’t necessarily involve people who speak different languages or have grown up in different countries.
Have you ever had difficulties understanding each other with an older person, e.g. your parents or tutor? Maybe they couldn’t understand why you wear certain clothes or like certain music… or just couldn’t understand some words that you use.
These are examples of intercultural communication!
So…what do you think helps to make it flow and what hinders it?
Share your experience and write down your ideas!
Learn
Read this article on diverse working and training environments, it provides some tools on how to favour intercultural communication effectively!
Dive in 1
Please read the text twice and answer the following questions together with your buddy. If necessary, you may go back and forth within the text.
- In which way have today’s workplaces changed compared to past years?
- What do you think – how might the global pandemic have impacted contemporary workplaces?
- Which challenges for employers arise from the changed workplaces?
Dive in 2
Please read the text again and answer the following question together with your buddy. If necessary, you may go back and forth within the text.
- What is meant by a ‘remote work model’?
Discuss about pros and cons of a remote work model for both the employer and the employee.
Create
The presence of a diverse group of employees doesn't ensure that there is no discrimination. Indeed the experience you make in a work-place often depends on your gender, on how you look like, on your age…
Now imagine that you are a HR-team with a magic stick.
In order to foster real inclusion, what would you do to make people of different genders, religions, origins, dis/abilities, life-styles, generations, languages… feel comfortable?
Do a brainstorming, and if you like, refer to these categories:
- architecture of the building
- equipment for leisure / free things
- food
- working-time
- internal communication
- community building
- services (e.g. kindergarten)
- representation of diversity in the top management and in all departments
Tip: Think of yourself and a bunch of very different people you know well. What would they wish to find in your enterprise?
Share your result in the work.it area!
Reflect
How expert do you feel in terms of ‘intercultural communication’? What tips presented in this unit are the most interesting for you and what skills would you need to develop further?
Share your reflections and summarize them in a postcard.
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