A Polish production worker nods while the team leader gives a safety instruction. An hour later it turns out he had not understood it, but in his eyes nodding was more polite than asking. A Dutch planner gives a German colleague direct feedback on a mistake; the German colleague experiences that as a public reprimand and withdraws. Situations like these occur in almost every multilingual team, and they are rarely caused by a lack of words. They arise because people from different cultural backgrounds have different expectations about how you communicate. That is what intercultural communication is about, and why a language course on its own is often not enough.
What is intercultural communication?
Intercultural communication is the way people from different cultures understand each other, or fail to. It is not only about language, but about everything surrounding the words: how direct you may be, how you deal with hierarchy, whether you say “no” out loud, how you give criticism, what a nod means, how important punctuality is and whether you make small talk before getting to the point. In the Netherlands directness is the norm and a manager is simply contradicted. In many other cultures, from Poland and Romania to Turkey, Syria and the Philippines, that works differently. Anyone unaware of this misreads behaviour and draws conclusions about colleagues that do not hold.
Why this costs money and safety on the shop floor
In production, logistics and construction, more and more people work whose mother tongue is not Dutch. When communication goes wrong there, the consequences are concrete:
- Safety. An instruction that is agreed to but not understood is more dangerous than an instruction someone asks a question about. In sectors with VCA safety obligations this is a daily risk.
- Errors and rework. A work order carried out differently than intended, a delivery loaded wrongly, a machine set up incorrectly.
- Turnover. Employees who do not feel understood, or who feel they are constantly being snapped at, leave. Recruiting and inducting replacements costs more than preventing the departure.
- Atmosphere and cooperation. Groups forming by language, irritation on both sides, managers who give up and start doing everything themselves.
The awkward part is that these costs rarely show up in one place. They sit spread across overtime, rejects, absenteeism and turnover. Which is why the problem often goes unaddressed for a long time.
Why a language course alone is not enough
The reflex of many employers is logical: the staff do not speak Dutch, so we arrange a Dutch course. That is a good start, but it solves only half the problem. Someone who speaks at B1 level after a second-language programme can still nod out of politeness, take criticism as a personal attack or find a Dutch team leader rude. The reverse applies just as much: the Dutch manager who has no idea why his team never pushes back keeps making the same mistakes, however good the team’s Dutch becomes.
That is why Speak And Spoke combines language training and intercultural communication training in a single programme. The language is practised in shop-floor situations, and at the same time what is culturally at play in those situations is discussed. The effect is that both sides learn: the non-native employees learn what is expected of them in the Netherlands, and the Dutch colleagues and managers learn how to give instructions that actually land.
What an intercultural communication training looks like in practice
A good programme does not start with a theoretical culture model, but with situations from the company itself. At Speak And Spoke that looks like this:
- Workplace analysis and intake. The trainer observes on the shop floor, speaks to participants and managers and maps out where things go wrong: which instructions, which moments, which teams.
- Practising with real situations. The start of a shift, a safety briefing, reporting a mistake, addressing a colleague. Participants practise this in the language of the shop floor, and what lies underneath culturally is discussed.
- VR scenarios. In a virtual work environment participants practise difficult conversations with virtual coaches, at low threshold and without a colleague watching. That lowers the barrier to making mistakes and raises the learning effect.
- Managers included. Part of the training is aimed at team leaders and supervisors: how do you give an instruction that is understood, how do you check understanding without belittling anyone, how do you give feedback to someone from a culture where that works differently.
- Embedding. Agreements on how instructions will be given from now on, how understanding is checked and who is the point of contact for what. Aftercare through e-learning and interim progress reports.
Practical tips that help from tomorrow
Even without training there are a few things that make an immediate difference in a multilingual team:
- Never ask “is that clear?” but “what are you going to do first?”. A yes answer says nothing; a summary in someone’s own words does.
- Use short sentences and one instruction at a time. Work instructions consisting of three steps are carried out wrongly more often than three separate instructions.
- Give criticism in private and start with what did go well. In many cultures public correction is a loss of face that lingers.
- Let the regular team leader give the instructions, not a different person every time. In many cultures trust between individuals weighs more heavily than the instruction itself.
- Make sure safety information is available visually as well: pictograms, photographs of the right and the wrong way, short videos.
When is training worthwhile?
An intercultural communication training pays off as soon as a team structurally consists of several nationalities and something is noticeably going wrong: incidents, rework, turnover or a manager who says he can no longer get through. Often the trigger is a specific incident. A sensible first step is an introduction in which the situation is reviewed; from that follows advice on whether language training, communication training or a combination fits best. More on the question of which language level a role actually requires can be found in the article on language levels A1 to C2.