Intercultural Skills Lab
Professional Development
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Intercultural Skills Lab
The Intercultural Skills Lab is a platform and resource grounded in the latest research and real-world experience.
Here, employees at all levels can develop the self-awareness, adaptability and communication skills and competencies demanded by an increasingly globalized workforce. Our programs and tools offer you and your team—your whole team—strategies and insights into how these essential global skills can be explored and integrated.
Our goal?
Agility, Creativity and Innovation for a Global Workforce
The business case is clear: diversity is a competitive differentiator across multiple categories. Intercultural skills encompass more than an integration of ethnicities and traditions. Once you’ve hired your culturally diverse team, then what?
The ISL promotes a deeper understanding of intercultural competencies for professionals. We recognize culture as a complex code of behaviours, preferences, values and interaction styles that impact business decisions and outcomes. Our practical approach to understanding the unspoken codes of thinking, behaviour and communication at play in the office encompasses three key areas:
- Maximizing your teams’ talents and experiences
- Cultivating culturally fluent teams for a stronger communication internally and with customers or stakeholders
- Leveraging your organizations diversity for agility, innovation and growth
ISL’s programs and tools promote self-awareness and cultural agility. The result? Higher employee engagement, broader customer orientation and more innovative, creative solutions for our changing business landscape.
Business Edge is an onsite career advancement program for internationally educated professionals to explore and navigate cultural values, interaction styles and intercultural agility. This transformative program positions you to leverage your international experience and achieve your full potential in Canada.
Business Edge Digital is a unique online career advancement program for highly motivated, internationally educated professionals. As a Digital participant, you can learn on your own time, and at your own pace to leverage your full potential and take your career to the next level. Like its Campus counterpart, the Digital program offers you a deeper understanding of cultural value, interaction styles and intercultural agility.
The Cultural Understanding of High Performers vs. High Potential: Recognizing the cultural gaps that may be barriers to career advancement
ISL has partnered with Ryerson University for a panel discussion exploring some of the cultural gaps that impact career advancement. For both talent managers and individuals, this panel offers strategies for encouraging talent mobility and creating an inclusive retention culture, as well as insights and strategies for communicating your value to your employer.
Intercultural Agility Guide
ISL’s Intercultural Agility Guide contains training and resources for better cultural fluency. Drawing on Touchstone’s 360° Competency Framework for Intercultural Communication, this Guide will raise awareness and develop the skills for an intercultural approach to communication.