The value of intercultural fluency
Many
students face their final year of studies, be it in matric or tertiary
education. The question on many minds is what the South African job
market holds for them when they enter it? Formal qualifications may be
the cornerstone on which many successful careers are built for many
employers of first-time candidates, but the soft skills required are
just as important.
©Robert Churchill via 123RF |
Recent
research by the British Council surveyed employers working in public,
private, and non-profit organisations in nine countries and found that
employers recognise a clear business value in employing staff who can
work effectively with individuals and organisations from cultural
backgrounds different from their own. Conversely, organisations whose
employees lack these intercultural skills are more exposed to risk.
Defining intercultural skills
The
research, undertaken with IPSOS and Booz-Allen Hamilton, asked
employers to define ‘intercultural’ skills. One of the key outcomes of
the research was the belief that intercultural skills include the
ability to understand different cultural contexts and viewpoints;
demonstrating respect for others; and knowledge of a foreign language
making the learners truly part of an international workforce.
Employers
reported that employees with these skills are more likely to bring in
new clients, work well in diverse teams, and positively support their
organisation’s brand and reputation. Employees who lack intercultural
skills leave their organisation susceptible to risks including loss of
clients, damage to reputation, and conflict within teams.
“As a
British and international organisation, we have seen a clear trend in
the young people coming from the UK that we work with. Through time the
confidence of young people in the UK has been eroded, and although many
are very bright academically, their core soft skills, such as
confidence, team-work, ability to work independently, self-initiative
and the ability to overcome challenges, has been eroded,” explains
Tyronne Bennett, Global Vision International (GVI) programme manager.
“In
our search for national and international staff, we turned increasingly
to the graduates of our programmes and moved to build an academic
curriculum around our work-based learning programmes. Now, 58% of our
staff are our own graduates, so it’s evident that we believe in the work
we are doing to help young people acquire the skills they need, and we
have seen many of our alumni go on to enjoy some great careers outside
of GVI, with alumni working for organisations such as the World Wildlife
Fund and Natural England.”
Intercultural fluency in the international job market
South
African employers identified that their most pressing business
challenge are finding qualified candidates with more than a quarter of
organisations’ surveyed being concerned about a loss of clients and
damage to brand and reputation because of cultural insensitivity and
project mistakes. With this in mind, GVI has partnered with British
Council to harness its 80-year track record to develop unique
intercultural training, coaching and consultancy to corporate and
business, education, government and non-government markets in South
Africa with the first
Intercultural Fluency course being offered in July in Cape Town.
One
of the core skills that GVI’s offers its students is inter-cultural
fluency. GVI is small UK social enterprise, which increasingly works
internationally in partnership with British Council. “We need our staff
to have an international outlook, to be engaged global citizens and to
have the skills required to work internationally.” As the UK decides its
future, be that within the EU or outside of it, internationalism is a
huge topic and very relevant either way.
“As the world becomes
increasingly inter-connected, those students equipped with international
understanding and fluency, have a huge advantage over those that do
not. We are seeing the same conversations around the world, in Far East,
Asia, Africa, in the Middle East, and the US, the topics are the same,
although framed somewhat differently.“ At a recent higher education
conference we attended in the US, we saw many universities looking
beyond their cities and states and national borders, following the
routes taken by our partners, Universities such as Duke University and
Stanford university, who have international programmes available to
their students to help build their global engagement and competency.
GVI
has hence developed a new range of programs which are academically
robust, with clear learning outcomes, offering hands-on experience
alongside local experts. This concept takes classroom curriculum
learning outside and into the real world. “The programs are designed to
challenge the students, to make them laugh and make them cry and force
them to overcome both personal and professional challenges. We wish to
equip and force the students to start thinking critically, and to come
to their own conclusions and thoughts about the world, rather than
purely believing what they are told."
Africa
A+ offers professional development and ongoing on-site support that
enables the member schools to think, plan and teach more creatively so
that children get excited about learning and develop the skills that
prepare them for lifelong success. Central to this approach is the
integration of the arts, such as drama, dance, music, visual art,
drawing and painting into the curriculum and learning process. 
