What is Cultural Competence Training?
In this article, we will discuss:
Examples of cultural competence vs cultural insensitivity
What is Cultural Competence?
Cultural competence is the ability to respectfully and effectively interact with people from diverse cultures in a work or social setting. It includes components such as cultural awareness, humility, sensitivity, communication, adaptability, and inclusivity.
Being culturally competent means a person has a deep understanding and appreciation of the values, beliefs, customs, languages, and traditions of different cultures. Cultural competence goes beyond simple awareness of cultural differences; it encompasses the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to navigate and work effectively in multicultural environments.
Check out this video of university students sharing their perspectives on cultural competence, offering insightful reflections on its meaning and significance to them.
They capture the multi-dimensional nature of this topic, emphasizing the power of embracing differences and venturing beyond one's comfort zone.
💡DID YOU KNOW? By 2050, 50% of the U.S. population will be made up of minorities. With an abundance of cultures and diversity amongst the population, it is necessary to understand how to embrace differences in beliefs and perceptions.
✅Examples of Cultural Competence:
McDonald's is known for adapting its menu to local tastes and cultural preferences in different countries. For example, in India, where the majority of the population doesn't eat beef, McDonald's offers a range of vegetarian options, such as the McAloo Tikki burger.
IKEA strategically adjusts its product offerings and store layouts based on the specific requirements of each country of operation, contributing to its strong global presence.
For example, in European cities where space is limited, IKEA opens smaller stores of approximately 1000 square meters compared to larger sizes of 25,000 square meters found in locations like USA and Canada.
In stores in India, the kitchenware selection includes spice boxes and rice cake makers, while in China, the offerings extend to woks, cleavers, and steamers.
Coca-Cola tailors their marketing campaigns by incorporating local celebrities, languages and traditions of different regions. In its “Share a Coke” campaign that was launched across 70 countries, Coca-Cola used region-specific phrases. For example, in Nigeria, coke can be shared with mama, papa, and bobo (a young man or boyfriend).
✅Examples of Cultural Insensitivity:
H&M faced backlash when they used a young black boy to model a hoodie with the slogan "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle." The ad was seen as racially insensitive and reinforced harmful stereotypes.
Dolce & Gabbana was criticized for a video ad that showed a Chinese model struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks. The ad was accused of cultural insensitivity and reinforcing stereotypes about Chinese culture.
Nivea came under scrutiny for a Facebook ad with the slogan "White Is Purity." The ad was seen as racially insensitive and was quickly pulled after public outcry.
Victoria's Secret later apologized for cultural appropriation after it featured model Karlie Kloss wearing a Native American-inspired headdress and lingerie in their fashion show.
Heineken received criticism for an ad that showed a bartender sliding a bottle of Heineken Light past several people of color to a lighter-skinned woman with the tagline "Lighter Is Better."
🔦Spotlight: Cultural Competency in Healthcare
Cultural competency is a relevant topic for every organization, especially those within the healthcare sector. It is a critical factor influencing the quality of healthcare, evidenced by the less favorable outcomes experienced by Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous individuals compared to their White counterparts in terms of healthcare coverage, access, and utilization.
98% of senior management in healthcare organizations is comprised of White individuals, emphasizing a severe lack of diversity in leadership. The lack of representation among leaders contributes to the disparities in healthcare quality provided to minority populations. These leaders have influence over critical policies related to hiring, patient care, staff training, and more, perpetuating the existing inequalities within the healthcare system.
One solution to address healthcare disparities is by facilitating cultural competency training. This approach enables medical professionals to understand how to effectively treat diverse patient populations and dismantle cultural barriers, ensuring the delivery of optimal healthcare.
This video explains how cultural competency is applicable in the context of treating indigenous individuals.
It advocates for a greater focus on cross-cultural skills and a deeper understanding of diverse traditions among medical professionals.
The benefits of effective communication with diverse cultures extend beyond the healthcare sector, impacting organizations in various industries as well.
Why Cultural Awareness is Important in the Workplace
🌎Promotes Global Expansion
Cultural competency allows organizations to venture into new markets by understanding and respecting the cultural nuances of different regions. This involves customizing products, services, and marketing strategies to align with local customs and preferences.
By demonstrating an understanding and appreciation for local cultures, organizations form meaningful connections with customers, fostering brand loyalty and increasing market share.
For Example: With operations in over 180 countries, Nestle’s international success is a result of its ability to adapt products locally and respect diverse cultural backgrounds. For example, recognizing Japan as a tea-drinking country, Nestle introduced coffee-flavored candies to familiarize children with the taste.
As these individuals transitioned into the working population, Nestle reentered the market with Nescafe and Kit Kat, both of which have gained immense popularity. Today, Japan has the most Kit Kat flavors globally, offering more than 350 options.
⚠️Avoids Miscommunication
Employees will be able to better communicate with their peers and clients, equipped with the skills to navigate cross-cultural interactions. This ensures that messages are accurately conveyed and interpreted.
Enhanced communication and an emotionally intelligent workplace increase inclusivity and productivity. In fact, inclusive teams have been shown to deliver 60% better results and decisions two times faster with half the amount of meetings.
📈Boosts Innovation
Cultural competency encourages a diverse workforce and, consequently, a diversity of perspectives. Different cultural backgrounds bring varied ways of thinking, problem-solving, and creativity to the table, fostering innovation.
A survey of corporate directors by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 93% of executives believe that diversity drives unique perspectives and 85% believe that it improves overall performance.
Cross-Culture Competence Continuum Model
The process of becoming culturally competent has been described to range on a continuum with 6 phases, which is also known as the Cross Framework.
The purpose of this model is to convey that achieving cultural competence occurs over time by acquiring increasing levels of awareness, knowledge, and skills - there is no easy quick fix that many organizations may desire. This also provides a framework that organizations can use to self-assess against, set goals, and plan for growth.
It’s important to note that this framework is dynamic and not a linear progression. Organizations may be at different points depending on their workforce makeup and the stage of their business lifecycle.
🪜6 Stages of Cultural Competence
Cultural Destructiveness
In this phase, the organization possesses attitudes, policies, and practices that are damaging to individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds
Example: Implementing policies that discriminate against immigrants including exclusionary hiring practices or making sweeping generalizations about this population.
2. Cultural Incapacity
This is when an organization does not have the systems and policies to prioritize the needs of culturally diverse groups. They may exhibit beliefs and practices that support the racial superiority of certain groups. This may look like discriminatory hiring and promoting practices, unfair allocation of resources, microaggressions, or lower expectations for specific groups.
Example: In day-to-day interactions, employees who are people of color experience microaggressions from colleagues and supervisors. These microaggressions include insensitive comments, stereotyping, and dismissive attitudes, creating a hostile workplace for these individuals.
3. Cultural Blindness
Blindness occurs when organizations view and treat people the same. The prominent belief here is that systems and policies should be unbiased towards everyone regardless of race or culture. However, this encourages assimilation and ignores the fact that minorities are fundamentally put at a disadvantage due to institutional and systemic discrimination.
Characteristics of this phase include ignoring cultural strengths, lack of diversity in the workforce, and having few resources dedicated to developing cultural knowledge.
Example: An organization has standardized policies implemented across its global offices in an effort to create consistency. A mandatory practice may be team-building activities that originate from North American norms and values.
These activities may not resonate with employees from different countries with differing perspectives on teamwork and collaboration. The organization fails to recognize and adapt to the cultural diversity within its workforce, leading to a lack of inclusivity and potential disengagement among employees from non-western cultures.
4. Cultural Precompetence
Here, a basic understanding of strengths and weaknesses is developed in regard to cultural competence efforts. Organizations begin to recognize the need for more culturally responsive policies with small changes such as inclusive hiring practices being adopted. At this stage, organizations still lack the necessary knowledge and experience and thus, the actions taken from this point forward can point towards positive progress or they can falter or regress in their efforts.
Example: The leadership team at an organization is beginning to understand the importance of embracing cultural diversity and has taken some initial steps to address this.
The company has initiated a diversity and inclusion program, which includes basic cultural competency training for employees. They have also started to recruit from a more diverse pool of candidates and have implemented flexible work policies to accommodate cultural and religious practices. However, these efforts are still in their early stages, and the organization has yet to fully integrate cultural competence into its core values and daily operations.
5. Cultural Competence
At this stage, individuals or organizations have a strong commitment to cultural competence and are actively implementing policies that exemplify this.
Practices exhibited by organizations in this phase include:
Creating a mission statement that states your organization’s principles and values for cultural competence
Implementing inclusive hiring policies to recruit and maintain a diverse workforce
Developing data collection capabilities to understand the current state of the organization in terms of representation and employee satisfaction
Diverse leadership team representative of various cultural backgrounds with mentorship opportunities for employees
6. Cultural Proficiency
This is the highest stage, where organizations not only understand and respect cultural differences but also actively work to promote diversity and inclusion in their core functions. They are advocates for cultural competence in their communities.
Practices exhibited by organizations in this phase include:
Prioritizing mental and physical health in organizational practices and benefits
Advocation for underserved communities through allyship
Supporting other organizations in their progress along the cultural competence continuum
📚Test Your Cultural Competence!📚
The London School of English offers a quiz to test your cultural awareness of various countries.
What is Cultural Competence Training?
Cultural competence training helps individuals develop the skills to navigate and communicate effectively across diverse cultures, promoting inclusivity, understanding, and mutual respect.
The training encompasses three key components designed to assist organizations in advancing along the Cross Framework toward achieving cultural proficiency:
Learning Outcome #1: Inclusive Language
Words can be easily misused or misunderstood, especially in the context of language barriers or cultural nuances.
Training can heighten your awareness of the words you choose and provide strategies for employing more inclusive language. For instance, opting for terms like 'partner' or 'spouse' instead of 'husband' or 'wife' fosters inclusivity.
Being more mindful of your language will help strengthen connections in an intercultural setting and avoid miscommunication.
Learning Outcome #2: Identifying and Addressing Biases
To manage the significant amount of information our brains process daily, we rely on mental shortcuts. This often leads to the development of unconscious bias, where our perceptions of individuals and situations are shaped by prior experiences or cultural influences.
In the workplace, biases can take various forms, such as:
Stereotyping by making assumptions about a person’s abilities or language proficiency based on their ethnicity or other characteristics
Purposefully excluding individuals from important meetings, projects, or social activities
Microaggressions by making subtle yet hostile comments rooted in biases
The goal of the training is to explore different types of biases and identify strategies for mitigating negative unconscious bias.
Learning Outcome #3: Strategies for Successful Communication
DEI experts can help your team effectively navigate communication within diverse teams by mastering the three layers of communication:
Verbal: Active listening skills, clear language, feedback loops
Non-verbal: Body language, cultural interpretations and expectations
Cultural: Cultural sensitivity, avoiding a blame culture
Examples of Culturally Competent Companies
Here are examples of organizations that have taken progressive steps to incorporate cultural competence into their core operations:
Unilever
The company has conducted training for over 5,000 marketing employees, focusing on improving their understanding of the experiences of Black, Latinx, LGBTQ+, and Muslim communities. This initiative aims to equip leaders with the ability to identify and correct cultural biases within their marketing strategies and workplace interactions.
Accenture
This consulting company adopts a proactive approach by assigning employees from various countries to collaborate within the same team.
To promote effective teamwork, Accenture provides cross-cultural training, conducts interviews with employees from different countries, and offers an online learning program. These initiatives enable individuals to gain insights into the cultural norms and backgrounds of their colleagues for a more inclusive work environment.
Ernst & Young
To improve cultural competency, this accounting firm provides formal training programs and a microsite dedicated to diversity & inclusion. The microsite shares strategies to leverage the full potential of diversity, incorporating resources from academic research and videos accessible to all of its 200,000+ employees.
Comparison of Cultural Competence Training
Culture Competence Training is considered FOUNDATIONAL TRAINING because:
Each of us can learn to improve our empathy and respect, leading to stronger interpersonal relationships.
Employees strive to increase their skills for successful cross-cultural communication as it is valuable in professional contexts.
No previous training or courses are needed when learning about cultural competence.
Comparing Cultural Competence Training Methods
Cultural Competency Workshop
Overview: Traditional in-person workplace session
Group Size: Limited capacity, best for small groups
Duration: Half or full day workshops
Cost: Starts at $10,000 and can range to $50,000+ for well-known speakers
Online Cultural Competence Training
Overview: Popular in small hybrid/remote teams and large companies
Group Size: Unlimited participants and digital recording for future learning
Duration: One to two hour sessions
Cost: Ranges from $2,500 - $5,000 depending on customization needed
Cultural Competence e-Learning Course
Overview: Module based self-paced learning for individuals
Group Size: Individual education that can be scaled as organization requires
Duration: 1 month course individually or 1 year as part of other training
Cost: From $1 / user per month