BananaBelt Culture & Training

Multi-cultural Teamwork Skills for Technical Professions

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Parent Category: Courses

Multi-cultural Teamwork Skills for Technical Professions - training and workshop (certificate)

This is our flagship course. We have helped hundreds of technical professionals to master the art of working in multicultural teams.

We have trained people from Singapore to cross the cultural barriers between Singapore, Canada, Germany and USA. Many Canadians have had the benefit of our training to successfully navigate the technical cultural waters of China, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, India, Malaysia and East Europe—to mention only a few examples.

Western corporations that are involved in Chinese technology transfer programs learn very quickly that one of their best investments in the venture is proper cultural training aimed at technical professionals and team work. Many examples are available of large corporations that have lost, or will lose money if the technical workforce is not well prepared to work with technical people in the host country.

Typically, technical professionals are fascinated with their work and field of study which is far removed from the “soft skills world” of sales, HR and admin. Technical training courses at college and universities around the world offer very little in terms of studies in the humanities. For this reason, technically minded professionals typically have less exposure to, and therefore less opportunity to learn the finer skills of navigating the generation gaps and culture divide that is today an integral part of our corporate lives.

We created our training courses in response to (sometimes frantic) calls from multinational corporate clients asking for urgent help. All too often, our first job is to help put out some fire before we can custom make a course to address their needs. Fortunately, many corporations are now adding to their training budgets to address these needs. Over the past few years we have seen how HR is given more and more access to the executive process in corporations, and their voice of wisdom about “soft skills” training needs are received with more conviction that say, in 2010.

BananaBelt’s course Multi-cultural Teamwork Skills for Technical Professions makes use of ~ 12 videos, ~ 100 PowerPoint slides, graphs, tables, data presented in a way familiar to technical professionals, and hands-on workshops. If preceded by the 1-day course in Cultural Awareness and Cultural IQ, the course Multi-cultural Teamwork Skills for Technical Professions can be customized for your company, the level of personnel and the target culture to be presented over 1 day.

We are comfortable to take our course to any location anywhere in the world. The only barrier is that the course must be presented in English language. We are also comfortable working with delegates who use English as a 2^nd language. In fact, about 40% of our programs are presented to ESL personnel.

This course is designed and presented by our CEO, Jean du Plessis, a seasoned interculturalist (degrees in World Religions and HR) with more than 20 years experience having worked in Southern and Northern Africa, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, UK, India, China and Cambodia. Jean's base is in Ontario, Canada. Jean specializes in helping corporations and divisions within corporations to create and maintain a culturally aware workplace culture where all staff members are attuned to the skills required for intercultural interaction.

Contact Adele today to reserve a slot in our schedule, to give you more information and a quote.

+1 519-336-1836

English Language & Western Culture Training Program

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The Better Way to Learn a Language and Culture is by Immersion

BananaBelt is proud to announce its improved and innovative Culture & Language Training Centre in Sarnia, ON. These 4-week and 12-week programs transfer North American everyday and workplace culture, and English language skills in the most intensive program of its kind.

Our program combines several key training elements into one intensive program. We combine the boot-camp concept with total immersion for no less than ten hours per day over a 12-week period. Attendees receive 180 class hours technical language instruction, a total of 740 hours facetime with advanced degree qualified professional trainers, and participate in 45 research projects that are presented in writing and orally, including 120 hours of multimedia participative instruction. Attendees live-in with their trainer(s), making it a 24-hour immersion program.

All factors considered, our course offers about 800 hours of instruction in real life, spoken and written English. Proper pronunciation is important. Attendees leave the program not only with widely improved vocabulary but their pronunciation will greatly improve communication. To assist in inculturation and translation of nuances in the English language of North America, attendees receive many hours of cross-cultural training.

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Well rounded solutions for your company

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You want your best worker on that important foreign assignment. It is hugely expensive. Typically, a foreign assignment costs from several hundred thousand dollars to more than a million.

A few thousand dollars spent on international assignment assesment, pre-assignment training and transferring intercultural skills BEFORE the assignment and regular meetings with an expat coach, is the only way to ensure the success of an assignment for the company and do due diligence for the employee's psycho-social welfare.

We can do all of that for you. When we take on an assignment, we provide the assignee with a well rounded service and the company receives regular, honest and candid feedback.

Our training courses are best-in-class and very effective but a single course is not sufficient to ensure the continued success of a crucial assignment. Humans are complex beings with developing needs. Appoint us to manage a well rounded service to your assignee; its not just due diligence, it illustrates that you care about the assignee, his/her family's mental health and the team on the other end.

Your assignee is the best person for that particular job, no doubt, but s/he is no superhuman. It is one type of stress to change one’s environment; sleep in a different bed, hear foreign languages and accents all the time, changing one's diet, sports and recreation, missing family, etc. That stress alone is enough to negatively impact productivity of any person.Every worker needs specialised support to ensure success under these conditions.

Even the smallest of cultural differences make a huge impact. For example, when working with Canadian staff, typically American managers are bad for morale and productivity because their workplace ethics, communication style and ideas of politeness are different.

Interculturalist Coaches

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Appoint an interculturalist coach to work with your assignee over the long term. The coach’s job starts before departure and most often ends after repatriation.

A coach is not only a well-trained interculturalist but also understands corporate culture, HR, international travel, global mobility matters and above all, human nature.

Coaches are great sound boards and counsellors. They are armed with insight and bags full of tips, tricks and methodologies that make international assignments and repatriation successful.

One powerful aspect about a third-party professional coaches is that they are exactly that, third-party professionals, outsiders where confidentiality is eased and company politics do not influence the relationship.

Cross Cultural & Corporate Skills Training

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Parent Category: Courses

We have training and education design experts on our staff with many years of corporate management experience behind them. While we have several ready-made courses that can be deployed and modified quickly, it is always possible (and sometimes advisable) to custom design something for your organization.

Corporate Training, Intercultural Training and Destination Services for inbound and outbound expats

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We provide services to corporations and the global mobility industry; acting as a local service provider in SW Ontario, Canada. Training can be taken anywhere in the world.

Destination Services

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We are not a full service global mobilization service provider - we provide local services only.  We do airport pickup meet-and greets, look-and-see tours, area -orientation, home finding expeditions, accommodations arrangements, pre-arrival, settling-in and post move services, cultural orientation, driver orientation and language orientation.