Research

Summary page

Research

Cross-cultural training and workplace performance by Robert Bean

The 2006 census found that around 30% of people residing in Australia were born overseas, a trend unlikely to be reversed in the short-term, given the Australian Government’s recent decision to signiﬁcantly boost the places in the permanent skilled migration program to help employers redress their skill shortages. In light of this, employers are likely to increasingly favour employees who can work and interact with people from different cultural backgrounds.

This study by Robert Bean investigated the contribution to workplace performance of cross-cultural training, a term used to describe training that develops a person’s ability to interact effectively with individuals from different cultures and in different cultural settings. The study is based on a survey of 134 vocational education and training (VET) graduates. The practices and views of 38 training providers and 31 employers on the current and future provision of cross-cultural training are also described.

The report highlights the positive experiences of VET graduates with cross-cultural training, as well as employers’ support for it. It lists the challenges for cross-cultural training as perceived by trainers, a speciﬁc challenge being to ensure that there is sufﬁcient and appropriate cross-cultural training embedded in training packages, particularly those covering sales and service industries, industries with high customer contact.

Key messages

The increasing cultural diversity of the Australian population and workforce means that the ability to work across cultures is becoming a necessity for many workers.

While employers acknowledge the beneﬁts of having a culturally competent workforce, they do not yet see cross-cultural competencies as part of a generic skill set. Moreover, the current level of cross-cultural training provision in vocational education and training courses appears to be quite low.

Acquiring cultural competence is a lifelong process that can be assisted by the formalisation of guidelines and criteria for the provision of cross-cultural training and the establishment of uniform benchmarks for learner outcomes.

Tom Karmel
Managing Director, NCVER