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Executive summary

1. Background, scope, and purpose of training

1.1. Background

Across Australia you can find the large retail chain that is Opal-Mart. Hundreds of stores sitting within urban, rural, and suburban communities allow each individual Opal-Mart to be their own business under the retail chains umbrella. The diversity from the store locations extends through the 3000 employees. The three leading cultures within the Opal-Mart workforce are Australian, Indian and Chinese.

Unspoken rules that are present in each culture can have an effect on individual communication. Within organisations, these cultural rules are not clear to all employees. As a result, consequences big or small have the opportunity to arise (Crossman et al. 2011).

Inclusivity is also present among the age of workers. Among the 200-300 employees per store are individuals working their first job as a 16-year-old, senior citizens who have been loyal to the store for many years and a range of ages in between.

Guido et al. (2013) notes that the inclusion of a large age gap in employees requires the use of several human resource management strategies. Recruiting, staffing, leadership, career development, and incentive programs are all strategies Guido et al. (2013) suggests.

With so much diversity, Opal-Mart took it upon itself to commission a communication audit. A classic top-down control was creating a barrier for information to reach employees as well as stopping them from having their voices heard. On top of that, frequent conflict took place among staff together with a general lack of trust and collaboration. A lot of which stems from cross-cultural issues and misunderstandings. Results from the audit revealed that employees were ready for a shift in communication culture and they desired to be involved.

In relation to the company statement, ***Connectors Company Group*** envision to implement and achieve a communication change that will honour and reflect trust and respect among all employees, but more specifically between those with diverse cultural backgrounds and their effective collaboration.

1.2. Scope 

Given the current issues mentioned above, our training is designed to increase the intercultural communication ability among Opal-Mart's employees as well as enhance their teamwork quality. Therefore, the main target audience of the course is all the store staff from culturally diverse backgrounds. Besides, we also collaborate with HR department to ensure that the training would be implemented smoothly and efficiently.

1.3. Purpose of training

The communication training sessions that our company proposes to bring a variety of desirable learning outcomes will be conducted in three-day in-class. We insist that our training program focuses on fulfilling the gap and up-skilling intercultural communication within Opal-Mart, which positive results in the business performance.

The lack of intercultural communication skills at Opal-Mart is an on-going issue that deeply relates to the company culture and daily business operation. Hence, our training sessions can efficiently improve the employee’ ability in well-dealing with cross-cultural situations, reducing the cultural bias and misunderstanding by implementing plenty of strategies for better intercultural communication. The training program further aim to develop teamwork skills and interpersonal relationship, which are supposed to boost employee engagement when everyone feels being equally treated and respected. It cannot deny that it is a crucial element in forming the culture of collaboration and inclusion, which lead to a low level of employee turnover and the high business growth for Opal-Mart.

Together with the HR department, we would support to build an appropriate communication framework and behaviours, which form a new active communication culture and guide Opal-Mart in reaching its core mission statement. With before and after-training actions, we commit to follow up our training process and give relevant recommendations which assist the HR department in managing cross-cultural contexts in the long run.

2. Training Plan

2.1. Company Philosophy

Connectors Group is one of the top reputable training companies located in Australia. Our mission is to deliver the outstanding training services which prioritise and customise upon to our clients’ needs and expectations. Given the communication context of Opal-Mart, our training program is highly practical in its design to match with the cultural diversity workforce, including raising self-awareness, cultural sensitivity and building a new communication culture. We aim to offer employees a combination of knowledge and practice which assist them in adapting and adjusting their communication behaviours in light of cultural differences. Notably, we do not treat the training as a ‘quick-fix’, and thus, we are continuing to work and support Opal-Mart in the long run at the right cost. We will provide training certificates which add value to employees’ resume.

2.2. Training contents

2.2.1. Raising self-awareness in the workplace

The first component in our training course is to increase employees’ self-awareness. To prevent negative biases and stereotypes from happening, we will use Hofstede’s model (Hofstede Insights 2020) to equip Opal Mart’s employees with the in-depth knowledge of cultural differences and similarities, mainly focusing on Australia, Indian and Chinese backgrounds. Also, we will present them the communication styles used in low and high contexts so they can avoid unexpected conflicts when interacting with each other. The final point that we propose to train your employees is about non-verbal communication, including body movements and gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact.

2.2.2. Developing cultural sensitivity

The following training content is to emphasise the Opal-Mart’ value statements and embraced with the sense of cultural sensitivity in communication to ensure that all of the staff understand what the company considers as appropriate intercultural communication behaviours. The common norms and some undesirable behaviours in interacting with others will be introduced as the approach to assist employees in treating each other with respect and building a strong interpersonal relationship simultaneously. This training session further highlights the positive contribution of effective communication in collaboration and productivity.

2.2.3. Promoting new communication culture

· Explicit communication

Promoting an explicit culture where the communication style is simple, clear, and pays more attention to the spoken words which result in reducing a high level of misunderstanding, developing a shared understanding and being open-minded among the staff. Some useful guidelines will be introduced to employees to reinforce this culture, such as avoid using slangs, inappropriate language and behaviour, and using open-ended questions to resolve the conflict.

· ·Active listening

Encouraging ongoing active listening and observing in the conversation demonstrates full concentration and active involvement, responding and asking questions to show that what has been said between colleagues is understood as well as comprehended. This approach is not only beneficial for employees but also for Opal-Mart’ top managers to build a trustworthy and robust workplace relationship.

· Trust and collaborative

Within the intercultural team at Opal-Mart, building a culture of trust is the priority, by promoting support in eliminating cultural barriers, encouraging others’ professional growths, sharing and caring. The high degree of trust facilitates better employee performance, engaging people, strengthening the advantage of cultural diversity and boosting team efficacy (Bandura 1997; Matveev & Nelson 2004).

2.2.4. Following – up actions

The final content of the training is to evaluate the interaction quality of employees and to provide them with the effective communication policy, which is about the acceptable verbal and non-verbal language used throughout Opal-Mart, and some language support sections that can help them to communicate better with other workers.

2.3. Timeframe, delivery mode, target goals

To achieve a successful outcome of training sessions, we propose to go through three stages

· Stage 1: Launching

· Stage 2: Training sessions

· Stage 3: Following up actions

Stage	Time	Content	Delivery mode	Target goals
Stage 1 Launching	1 week	Collecting thoughts and expectations of employees toward the ideal communication culture	A survey to collect the general expectations and opinions of employees. Focus group interviews to gain deeper insights of employees	Opportunity for employees to raise their voices and create a feeling of being a part of Opal Mart. Collect the critical information to build the communication policy Redesign the course structure to be more practical if necessary
	1 week	Training course information	Sending emails, messages to inform employees the brief information of the training course.	To make sure that all the store staff have sufficient information about the future course.
Stage 2 Training sessions	Day 1	Raising self-awareness in the workplace	Conduct an introduction based on three main group in different languages Activities / role play for assumptions, stereotypes	One group will better understand cultures of other groups, including communication styles, verbal and non-verbal languages. Their biases and stereotypes towards other ethnic groups will be positively changed, they will be open to embrace the differences.
	Day 2	Developing cultural sensitivity	Icebreakers Team building game activities Cultural experience sharing Lunch and learn	To build a sense of culture sensitivity among the employees. Familiar with the basic norms from Australia, India and China. Forming a stronger bond and positive interpersonal relationship among employees.
	Day 3	Promoting new communication culture	Role playing Video sharing Providing new communication culture Wrap-up	Identify how using slangs and inappropriate communication behaviours could lead to misunderstanding and conflict. Familiar with open-ended question and confidence to apply this approach after training sessions. Clarify positive and negative consequences for good and poor intercultural communication Clear understanding and involvement with a new communication culture whichis built upon Opal-Mart’ mission and statement.
Stage 3 Following-up	1 month	Supporting to HR department	Emails Online surveys Language support	We would continuously work with HR department to evaluate the improvement in communication among all employees and offer useful solutions and recommendations.

2.4. Benefits to target audience

Through the training activities mentioned above, we do believe that it would benefit both store staff and Opal-Mart as a whole.

At the individual level, employees would gain a better understanding of different ethnic groups within Opal-Mart, mainly Australian, Indian, and Chinese cultures, which then build up their confidence, cultural sensitivity and the understanding of its impact on intercultural communication. Using practical activities such as role-play, cultural stories sharing, and ice breakers provides participants with in-depth experience in developing cultural intelligence which is the capability to behave appropriately as well as avoid unexpected conflict in cross-cultural context (Blasco et al. 2012). Consequently, Opal-Mart’ staff would become an effective intercultural team which demonstrates team cohesion, respect, trustworthy and the bonding among individuals at all levels as their ability to classify and bridge their culture differences (Adler 2002). Moreover, it would improve better communication with customers in the given multicultural context of the Australian market.

For the organisational level, Opal-Mart would reach the business purposes reflected on the company’ statement to embrace all the diverse cultures with trust and respect in daily business operation towards achieving shared objectives. Besides, nurturing a good communication culture facilitates better workforce relationships where misunderstanding and conflicts are dispelled quickly and effectively. Hence, a new but effective communication culture proposed for the long run would be the critical foundation in promoting a healthy and productive working environment and gaining the competitive advantages for Opal-Mart.

3. Conclusion

To sum up, our training proposal provides an overview point of intercultural communication at Opal-Mart lately and show our desire to deliver a high-quality training which beneficial impact to the communication change and purchase Opal-Mart’ core mission in a proactive and voluntary manner. We highlight the importance of cultural awareness and sensitivity in building mutual respect, trust, and collaboration. We do believe that our training would honour the human capital in educating and building a strong culture of productivity and thus profitability at Opal-Mart in the long-term business.

A higher level of intercultural communication skill within Opal-Mart would offer the company a competitive advantage and outstanding with other competitors and to create a positive working environment which attracts and attains many potential talent employees.

Reference list:

Adler, N. 2002, International dimensions of organizational behavior, 4th edn, Cincinnati, OH: South-Western, Thomson Learning.

Bandura, A. 1997, Self-efficacy, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Blasco, M., Edholm Feldt, L. & Jakobsen, M. 2012, 'If only cultural chameleons could fly too: A critical discussion of the concept of cultural intelligence', International Journal of Cross-cultural Management, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 229-245.

Crossman, J., Bordia, S. & Mills, C. 2011, Business Communication: for the Global Age, McGraw-Hill, North Ryde, NSW.

Guido, H., Van Der Heijden, B.I.J.M., De Lange, A.H. & Jüger, D. 2013, ‘Facilitating Age Diversity in Organizations’, Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol. 28, no. 7/8, pp. 729-740.

Matveev, V. & Nelson, E. 2004, ‘Cross Cultural Communication Competence and Multicultural Team Performance’, International Journal of Cross-cultural Management, vol. 4(2), pp. 253-270.

Hofstede Insights, 2020, Country Comparison, viewed 18 May 2020, <https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/australia,china,india/>.

Appendix 1

Cultural comparison between Australia, China and India by Hofstede’s Model