Part 2 on: How do companies benefit from a culturally diverse workforce?

... and what's diversity management all about?

Pepper ponders...

How do you keep international employees happy in the long term?

And how can a company design diversity management and (pre-)onboarding processes with this in mind?

Pepper has already outlined how companies can benefit from a culturally diverse workforce in the first part of this blog post. ⇒ How do companies benefit from a culturally diverse workforce? (relocation.at)

Pepper is now thinking about how companies can take active steps in their day-to-day work to actually achieve this competitive advantage and maintain it in the long term...

Different cultural behaviors can become a challenge among employees in daily exchanges. The right approach can certainly minimize the potential for conflict. There are already some basic ideas for this “approach”, the diversity management, but each company should think through and plan it individually.

Pepper - resourceful and clever as he is - has known for a long time that the (pre-)onboarding process is a crucial phase for everyone involved.

The following points can make a decisive difference for your company:

• Financial burden: many companies often do not realize what a multifaceted effort it actually is for an international to relocate to a new country. The costs involved add up quietly and secretly over the entire relocation process. At this point, for example, Pepper vividly recalls the certification fees and translation costs that one of his clients recently had to deal with...
  Moving can also be a financial challenge for new graduates at the start of their career.
  A new manager, on the other hand, may not feel valued enough if they do not feel sufficiently “picked up” by their (new) employer.
  Plus, moving to a completely different country with a family is certainly no child's play.
  

  In Pepper's experience, new international employees are incredibly grateful when companies declare their willingness to offer them a little help to get started.

  For example by:

• • covering the application fees for the necessary residence permits and/or
  • the rental costs for the temporary apartment at the beginning of their stay in Austria, or
  • even hand over the entire relocation process (dealing with the authorities, registering, looking for accommodation, finding a place in kindergarten and/or school, etc.) to professional relocation experts as a non-monetary goodie for a good future together.

• Diversity management: needs authentic implementation in everyday company life. Training and learning opportunities as well as intercultural training for your workforce are ideal for this topic. At the same time, it is also advisable to involve existing teams in the process in order to support and facilitate exchange and communication between all employees.

• Orientation guide: at the beginning of their stay, many new arrivals are very busy finding their way in their new everyday life abroad. Prepare a small (one-off) Austrian cultural guide. Such a folder can contain general information about the country or the specific city, as well as contact points for important private matters such as doctors, insurance and tax systems, childcare and so on. RANDOS offers such an orientation aid, for example in the form of a “City Guide Book”.
  
  
• Last but not least, employee events: this point is probably already part of every company's daily routine. Most likely there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. With international employees, the creative framework in which you can think about employee events expands. Plan international cooking or music evenings where all possible nationalities of your employees can be represented. This enables a manager to respond to the cultural diversity in the team within a manageable framework and definitely promote intercultural exchange.
  

  At this point, Pepper also thinks of the RANDOS offer, which he warmly recommends to his clients: the RANDOS consultants offer a Newbie Brunch at regular intervals for all newly arrived internationals, where they have the opportunity to exchange ideas, connect and ask their questions.

Completely informal and true to our motto: Don’t worry – be relocAIDed…