Intercultural Awareness in the Workplace (online)

Date: 17 June 2023

About the course

This 1-day credit-bearing CPD course will introduce intercultural issues and challenges in contemporary workplaces. It aims at raising intercultural awareness to anticipate issues that might affect the dynamics of multicultural teams, while strengthening team cohesion, collaboration and trust. 

The course combines formal and informal learning activities covering theoretical concepts, case studies and collaborative activities allowing participants to share knowledge, experience and good practice and help to consolidate knowledge and practice, and to create a space for networking and building future collaborations. Course materials, complementary resources and CPD certificates will be available to all participants upon completion of the course. 

By the end of the course, participants will: 

• Have knowledge of different theoretical and practical approaches to interculturality 
• Be able to anticipate how intercultural issues might affect the dynamics of multicultural teams 
• Be able to apply the gained knowledge and understanding to work practices

Who is the course for? 

• Team leaders 
• Employees in multicultural environments 
• Entrepreneurs or small businesses with international clients 

Fee

• Regular fee: £145  
• Alumni fee (including participants in previous Heriot-Watt CPDs): 10% discount  
• Current Heriot-Watt staff and students: £76 

What is included in the fee?

• Tuition fee 
• Access to the course materials and CPD certificate 

Learning Outcomes 

• Introduce participants to key concepts and theories of culture(s) 
• Provide participants with a comprehensive appreciation of different communication models and conventions 
• Foster participants’ ability to communicate meaningfully and complete tasks in multilingual and multicultural teams. 
• Identify, analyse and evaluate cross-cultural conventions and strategies in the global context 
• Develop skills for working in and managing multilingual and multicultural teams 
• Reflect on own and others’ cultural identities, communication and conflict resolution styles 

Course Timetable

9:00 - 9:30: Introductions

• Overview, learning outcomes and expectations

9:30 - 11:00: Culture and Communication in the workplace

• Overview of key models and contemporary approaches 
• Organisational culture 
• The contemporary multicultural workplace 
• Cross-cultural challenges in workplace interaction 
• Developing intercultural competence

11:00 - 11:25: Break

11:25 - 13:00: Multicultural teams

• Team formation – establishing trust in cross-cultural contexts 
• Cross-cultural understandings of leadership 
• Team meetings: agenda control, formality, politeness, turn-taking etc. 
• Negotiation and conflict in cross-cultural settings 
• Intercultural perspectives of time, work and leisure 

13:00 - 14:15: Lunch Break

14:15 - 15:30: Dignity and Diversity in the workplace

• Cross-cultural understandings of dignity 
• Dimensions of diversity: Race and ethnicity; Religion, age and social class; Gender identity  
• Case studies 

15:30 - 15:55: Break

15:55 - 16:45: Multilingualism in the workplace 

• Language(s) in the workplace correspondence
• English as a Business Lingua Franca 
• Conducting business through translation and interpreting 

16:45 - 17:00: Wrapping up

• Concluding remarks and follow-up work 

Contact

For any questions about the course content, please contact the course leader Dr Katerina Strani at lincs.cpd@hw.ac.uk. For any administrative or registration questions, please contact the course coordinator Dr Khadidja Merakchi, lincs.cpd@hw.ac.uk