High staff turnover? Poorly or demotivated people? A lack of effective intercultural communications skills may be contributing factor. Talk to us for help with identifying the intercultural communication skills your organisation may need.
The dynamics of intercultural relationships and effective communications in business and the workplace are a fascinating part of doing business. At times it can be a challenging experience. Handled well, effective communications helps build and sustain strong relationships, increased productivity and mutual benefit. Done poorly misunderstood communication can be a potential deal breaker. This can lead to broken relationships, lost opportunity and lost business.
Effective cross-cultural communications is a vital skill that can be learned to enhance leadership and management skills in the office, on the shop floor or virtual teams.
Learn to lead and manage cross-cultural teams to achieve the results you want by contacting us.
Clarifying understanding is important for high performance in any culture but even more so in cross-cultural situations. Often English may be only one of several languages members of the group speak and the giving and saving of ‘Face’ may different levels of importance to those involved.
In this context, learning how to clarify and check for understanding respectfully and effectively to achieve the business objective is an essential skill for leaders and managers.
Helping new talent from overseas transition into the New Zealand workplace and the Kiwi way-of-life is an important part of ensuring your organisation’s investment in recruiting from off-shore pays off. At work, understanding and appreciation of each other’s cultural norms and expectations is a key step for new talent and their New Zealand workmates in learning to adapt and become part of a high performing team.
Outside work, it’s important to help the new talent’s spouse and family understand the New Zealand way-of-life and how to adapt to make settling in easier.
Increasingly New Zealand organisations are sending staff offshore for business, special projects and humanitarian aid. The success of these projects can be greatly increased through preparatory cultural awareness and cross-cultural communication training.
Catalyst Pacific has significant experience in this area, particularly in preparing teams for the Pacific region.
In the Western world, the baby boomers are ageing and with them a demographic challenge is looming. In New Zealand, as with some of our traditional trading partners, our labour force growth is slowing and our workforce is ageing. There are now more 60‐64 year olds than 15-19 year olds in the workforce. Nearly one in three workers are over 50 and by 2029 it is projected that one in four workers will be aged over 64. Read more →
