British Council blazes trail for intercultural fluency

Friday, 27 October 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Whether you have secured a new role in an international organisation, engage with a multicultural client base or manage a team of people from different cultures – performing at your best in different cultural contexts requires more than just business know-how.

Employers now globally rank intercultural skills above technical skills in terms of importance to their business. British Council Sri Lanka is currently rolling out their ground-breaking Intercultural Fluency training courses. With the support of the Intercultural Fluency team, a cohort of accredited Intercultural Fluency trainers are now in place and starting to deliver training to a variety of clients including Sri Lankan Airlines Ltd., Noyon Lanka Ltd. and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Sri Lankan Airlines Ltd. Human Resource Development Executive (HR Development and Business Partnering) Melrie Arsakularathna said, “I was looking out for a workshop that would help me mould the newly recruited management trainees to our organisational culture. Through this intercultural fluency workshop, which was part of the three-day workshop series run by the British Council for the Sri Lankan Airlines Management Trainee Batch, it worked fine for them, to understand the organisational culture better, the different means and ways of culture fit in an organisation and how working with people of different cultures differ. I believe this session would help any organisation, especially with a vast overseas network, to understand the different working cultures and how to blend in.”

British Council Sri Lanka Head – Teaching Centre Partnerships Robert Sandrasagara commented: “In the short time we have had to explore Intercultural Fluency, we have realised its immense value and alignment to the needs of our customers in Sri Lanka. It has helped us to step up our Professional Training offer and provide training solutions in the sphere of Management Training by combining it with our existing portfolio. It has recently helped us secure contracts from the Aviation, Apparel and Not for Profit field and will certainly be of interest to our clients across industries in both the public and private sector. Through Intercultural Fluency, our trainers benefit from wider set of skills, the British Council benefits from improving its impact in the area of cultural relations and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and our clients benefit from an insightful course that focuses on globally effective employees. Everybody wins!”

Intercultural Fluency courses are practically focused yet based on current academic thinking about cultural theories. They are firmly grounded in the British Council’s unrivalled experience of cultural relations and daily intercultural engagement. The courses support participants in honing their interpersonal, communication and critical thinking skills and in becoming more adaptable, open, self-aware and resilient. Each course includes case studies designed to reflect the real-life situations that participants are likely to face and provides practical tools that can be used inside and outside the workplace.

For more information on Intercultural Fluency training at the British Council contact Noyalganth Rajkumar on 0769752798 or visit https://www.britishcouncil.lk/english/courses-training/intercultural-fluency.