Introduction and background
In 2006, some 28,000 staff were employed at the European Commission. They were drawn (in fairly even proportions) from the citizens of the 25 member states. Together these staff had 21 “mother-tongue” languages, though the languages most commonly used in the daily work of the Commission are English and French. Norman Jardine, the Head of Learning and Development in the Commission's Directorate-General for Personnel and Administration (DG ADMIN), not surprisingly faces a major challenge in delivering effective learning to this diverse client group.
Language
The need to deliver training and learning in several languages, and in a form that is easily comprehensible to people who have 19 other first languages, is the most immediate and practical problem.
95% of the classroom training is outsourced and it is essential that the same message is delivered in sessions held in English, French and other languages. At the operating level, the central training team have to check content ensuring that the translation of written material is precise. More importantly, however, there is a considerable up-front effort involved in this selection of outsourced trainers – their ability to operate in both languages is critical. One consequence for training design, according to Norman Jardine is “that you must deliver a simple message to a complex and demanding audience.” What is meant here is that there must be no ambiguity of meaning – all staff must leave the seminar with a clear and consistent understanding – but the session must be delivered in a way that engages an intelligent and confident audience.
These skills must be deployed at both the delivery and the design stage. Norman Jardine offered the following observation:
“Language is important. Your perceived personality, your perceived competence and your perceived value is limited by your capability in the language. Our classroom trainers must take account of this; they must vary the pace, check understanding and recognise that some participants will find participating and contributing more demanding.”
A related issue is language training itself which, according to the Commission’s 2006 Strategic Training Framework:
“Will continue to occupy a privileged position in the Commission on account of its multilingual and multicultural character.”
In 2005 DG ADMIN offered some 900 separate courses in 28 languages which attracted 13,500 participants.
Multinational and multicultural issues
Norman Jardine recognises that nationality and culture are closely connected. He uses two separate terms, multinational and multicultural, in part to illustrate the way in which simple stereotyping can detract from the effort to create effective strategies for dealing with the complexity. He offers the following illustration:
Most trainers rely heavily on US models – motivation theory would be a good example. These models are often perceived as Anglo-Saxon and their use frequently leads to demands for a consideration of alternatives developed elsewhere. This demand has become even stronger since the accession of the ten new countries in May 2004.
Coping with the challenge
Norman Jardine is by no means dismissive of models or frameworks which assist in understanding cultural differences. However they do not feature extensively in the training programmes offered by DG ADMIN. In the induction course there is a session on working in a cross-cultural environment. An outsourced contractor offers a one day course on working in a multicultural environment.
Norman Jardine sees it as important to avoid stereotyping and not to make assumptions: “background and life and work experiences are bound to lead to different starting points and different receptiveness.” Adjustments must be made by those responsible for designing and delivering training and this is part of the professionalism of the job.
The importance of the choice of outsourced trainers has been outlined above. One of the criteria is that the consultants should be able to demonstrate, in concrete and practical terms, how they can run a session in a way that takes account of different starting points. In the classroom sessions, trainers can expect more challenges from participants who are coming from different sets of prior experiences. Trainers must allow more time for intervention; they must ‘slim down’ the basic message so that it is clear to all participants.
This all requires ‘craft skills’ – a particular part of trainer competence – and success is about professionalism and competence.