Culture at Work: Skills For The Global Workplace

Meghann Jones Ipsos Public Affairs 29th May 2013

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Globalized world, new economies

emerging

Changing workplace:

international and multi-cultural

Necessary to work across

international borders and in multi-cultural

teams

Context to the research

What are the skills needed to do this?

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What did we do?

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o Large companies and organizations

o Decision makers

o Responsible for recruitment and skills development strategy

Survey of employers in nine countries

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The countries were...

United States

Brazil

United Kingdom

South Africa

India

Jordan

United Arab Emirates

Indonesia

China

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Types of organizations included

Sample size • n=367 (appx. n=40 per country)

Organization Type: • 54% Private Sector • 23% Public Sector • 23% NGO/Charity/3rd Sector

Private Sector Types:

• Mix of Manufacturing, Finance, Construction, Retail Trade, Professional Services, Wholesale, Transportation, Health care, etc.

Public/NGO Sector Types:

• Mix of Health, Education, Home Affairs, International Development, etc.

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Two-thirds interact frequently with those overseas...

% organizations where English is spoken day-to-day

... and English is used extensively day-to-day

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What did we find?

The top business challenge is finding qualified employees

% of employers reporting business challenge

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FINDING QUALIFIED CANDIDATES

(29%) GOVERNMENT REGULATION

(23%) COMPETING GLOBALLY

(20%)

Top HR challenge is finding and retaining employees

% of employers reporting HR challenge

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Finding candidates with right formal qualifications

Retaining good employees

Finding candidates with good communication skills

Training employees on new processes

Finding candidates who understand the market

Finding candidates with good foreign language skills

When we asked employers about “intercultural skills” specifically…

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And different types of skills are needed for different job types

Internal facing employees need basic communication skills • Respect, collaboration, flexibility, time management

External facing employees need skills beyond the basic skills • Foreign language skills, ability to adjust communication to suit cultural contexts

Public sector employees require respectfulness and understanding of cultural contexts

• Respect, understand cultural contexts, flexibility, leadership

Private sector employees need creativity and trustworthiness as well as respectfulness

• Trustworthy, flexibility, collaborative, creative

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Importance of intercultural skills to organization (by country, ranked by very important)

And they are VERY important to most

What do intercultural skills bring to an organization?

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• Keep teams running efficiently

• Build trust with clients

• Bringing on new clients

• Able to work with diverse colleagues

• Good for reputation

• Communicate with overseas partners

40%

35%

33%

29%

28%

24%

Top Business Benefits of Intercultural Skills

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And there are risks to not having them

• Conflict within teams

• Reputation damage

• Loss of clients

• Cultural insensitivity to clients or partners

30%

27%

27%

21%

Top Business Risks of Not Having Intercultural Skills

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However, many employers are not screening for intercultural skills

% of employers who screen for intercultural skills during the recruitment process (by country)

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Though there are indicators that demonstrate intercultural skills in candidates

80%

68%

49%

33%

11%

Demonstratingrespect

Flexibility Open to new ideasand ways of thinking

Adjustscommunications tofit different cultural

contexts

Communication inother languages

US

71% 70%

61%

49%43%

Demonstrating respect

Flexibility Open to new ideas and ways of thinking

Adjusts communications to fit different cultural

contexts

Communication in other languages

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The extent to which intercultural skills are present in candidates varies

Specific intercultural skills seen in candidates in the application / interview process

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The role of education in

developing intercultural

skills in the workforce

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On the job development is important, but education must play a role

% of employers who believe education in their country enables job candidates to meet the intercultural needs (by country)

Average = 35%

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Teaching communication skills was #1 suggestion for higher education

Contributions That Education Can Make To Improve Intercultural Skills

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In summary…

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1. The workplace is becoming more globalized

Global workplace, significant challenges, skills gap

2. Employers facing significant challenges

3. Employers looking for a number of skills beyond formal qualifications

4. In particular, communication and intercultural skills are very important

5. Employers are not seeing job candidates with adequate communication and intercultural

skills

6. Education has a key role to play in developing these skills in the future workforce

Thank you!

Meghann.Jones@ipsos.com