Cultural Training

Employees who have the skills to work effectively across cultures hold the key to success in global business. And, studies show that families who receive support during their international move are more likely to complete a successful assignment. As your company expands globally, IOR equips your employees and families with the tools they need to achieve your company’s objectives.

Core Cultural Training Programs

• IOR’s engaging, interactive Intercultural Training encourages expatriates to build the knowledge and skills needed to ensure successful cultural integration — personally and professionally
• The most successful assignees are those who put the time and effort into developing the required skills to thrive in their new host culture in both work and daily life.  Individually customized for assignees and their families, our Intercultural Skills for Global Success sample curriculum includes six main topics:

1. Assignee motivations, goals and challenges
2. Comparison of home and host cultures
3. Developing skills for more effective intercultural communication
4. Doing business in the host culture
5. Daily life in the host culture
6. Effective strategies for adaptation

Youth and Teen

• Youth and teen intercultural training programs provide young expatriates a safe environment to learn about the new host culture at their own level, and develop individualized plans for their lives abroad.
• Young expatriates experience relocation from their own perspectives. Children and teens experience their own “roller coaster” of emotions, challenges and excitement as they prepare to re-create their lives in a new host culture. IOR offers two separate curricula – one for children 12 and under, and another for teens – designed to help reduce anxiety, understand to cope with culture shock and manage expectations. Both the Intercultural Explorer and Intercultural Pathfinder programs are activity-based and highly interactive, offering an opportunity to learn about their new host culture, make plans for adaptation, and feel a great sense of control over this important life transition.

Reintegration 

• Returning home is often more difficult than expatriating. The reintegration workshop is an opportunity for returning expatriates to develop strategies for re-establishing professional and personal paths that leverage the experience abroad.
• The final step of a successful global assignment is reintegration back into the home culture and workplace. IOR’s intensive reintegration Leveraging Your Global Experience workshop is an opportunity to debrief the assignment using a structured framework. Returning expatriates also develop strategies for applying new knowledge and skills to their “new” personal and professional lives at home. [to further advance their career?]

 Intercultural Coaching

• Intercultural Coaching provides real-time support for expatriates and business travelers on the go. After an initial business briefing, follow-up sessions focus on developing strategies to address specific business goals.
• Intercultural Coaching goes well beyond classroom learning, and addresses the specific goals and challenges that expatriates or business travelers bring to the table. IOR’s Intercultural Business Coaches around the world have deep business experience in their countries of expertise. They provide knowledge and guidance and recommend strategies for developing stronger working relationships across cultures.

All IOR Intercultural Coaching sessions include a one-year subscription to the online tool Country Navigator that offers information on more than 90 countries, as well as an individualized Cultural Profile to compare with countries of interest. The Country Navigator profile establishes the individualized foundation for the initial coaching session. Additional sessions build on previous discussions to address real-life challenges and work toward meeting business goals. Additionally, all programs come with a free follow up coaching session; delivery can be face to face or virtual.