An under-discussed aspect of working for a global company is knowing the nuances and habits of different cultures’ working environments. Luckily, last Thursday afternoon, Simply presents had an online webinar about just that and the work that Medtronic had conducted in building cross-cultural awareness for a more inclusive workspace.

Logging on with a cup of coffee, I was excited to hear what Medtronic’s Xeniya Shilina, Senior Manager of Internal Change Communication, and Lisa Emilie Fritzboeger, Communications Manager, had learned. It certainly wasn’t surprising that the company ran such a session with 95,000 employees across 150 countries and 78 manufacturing sites.

Medtronic’s culture was all over the globe; Latin American countries, across Asia and North America, but their communications team was still about 80% US-based. They set out to build greater cultural awareness between these siloed departments to equip their people with the emotional intelligence and people skills they needed to create great global output.

As much as this was an initiative led by the two, huge parts of it were made possible through the grassroots efforts of volunteers at Medtronic, who put the time and effort in to develop the programme in earnest. This was made up of a series of learning formats and activities to help take a check of people’s current cultural understanding and test them.

The initial framework was based on the work of Erin Meyer, author, speaker, and cultural expert. More specifically, her concept of The Culture Map, which ostensibly were cut between two communication styles, direct and implicit. These ranked national cultures on a scale of eight, which included communicating, evaluating, leading, and more. This would provide a framework to navigate different working styles across the planet and gave the know how to apply yourself when faced with one that is distinct from your own.

This framework was delivered to the workforce through four activities to drive engagement and meet different learning styles. These ranged from interactive polls, self-paced learning, live sessions with Erin Meyers herself, and finally a feedback team session where colleagues could practice what they learned and ask more questions.

One of the crucial drivers of this project was stakeholders found in leadership positions who were able to vouch for the merits of the project and bring its full potential to their colleagues. More than this, their acuity to understanding the need to fold in all learning styles proved to be hugely successful and helped them achieve a 90% participation rate in the project.

Another interesting element was that culture understanding was revealed to be a competency must, alongside the likes of business acumen and AI. As companies become only more and more disparate and diffuse, people skills and cross-cultural understanding can’t be forgotten as a means of streamlining communications and gaming out strategy.

The fact that this project was such a labour of love, from the team of volunteers to executive stakeholders, shows how much all teams wanted to connect with their international colleagues and valued this skillset. To give the chance to learn tangible communications skills that go far beyond the remits of their positions was a unique addition to the upskilling and employee journeys of places like Medtronic.

More than this, it was putting in the vital work to forge the cohesive global workforce that people want to see. No matter what size, a company like Medtronic can go back to basics and enable confident, proactive, and meaningful communications, no matter their background.