Poland – The Rising Star for Business Process Outsourcing
The global business world is currently experiencing a fast rate of development in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services. According to a 2014 Bloomberg survey[i], Poland is the best country to do business in Eastern Europe because of its expanding consumer market and improving infrastructure. When it comes to BPO centers specifically, Poland is now among the 10 best locations in the world for business investing.
Facing the Challenges of Working Across Cultures
What do expanding BPO services mean from an intercultural perspective? Everyday, hundreds of thousands of employees work around the world and with others worldwide. They face various challenges connected with working across numerous cultures. Some daily examples include:
- New hires meeting corporate cultures that sometimes reflect the national working styles of the company’s country of origin—and not the national working style of the country where they are located;
- Employees involved in knowledge and process transfers traveling to foreign countries as a requirement for the task;
- Multicultural project teams working virtually;
- Providers of goods or services working with clients from other countries who may have a very different mindset about what “good customer service” means;
- Managers’ leadership styles influenced, in part, by their cultural identities;
- Colleagues from various company departments working asychronously in different time zones and understanding the work in different ways.
Developing Global Skills
As Human Resource departments are responsible for helping people achieve the highest effectiveness within their working conditions, HR professionals are becoming more and more aware that there is a need for employees to be practiced at applying tools, methods and guidelines that will facilitate strong cooperation in intercultural environments both locally and abroad. In a business context, global skills are a set of competencies that people learn and develop over time in order to effectively connect with others across cultures.
intercultures CEE – the Right Partner for Global Skills Development
To be a partner in this process, intercultures Central and Eastern Europe (intercultures CEE) creates solutions that are dedicated to support employees in global skills development. In Kraków—the biggest BPO center in Poland—intercultures CEE has cooperated with several companies in the last year alone to provide training programs aimed at global skills development. One ongoing project prepares new employees—beyond procedure—for a transition process in order to enhance their professional competence.
Winning Global Opportunities
Another completed client project offered new hires the chance to develop global skills during their onboarding process. Participants were shown how cultural mindsets work, and how to communicate and cooperate within intercultural environments.
Technical skills alone are increasingly less adequate for those offering their talents in the global marketplace. Global skills—especially in the case of cultural complexity represented in BPO systems—are a differentiator increasingly more important in order to open and win global opportunities. In what ways do you recommend conscientiously developing one’s global skills? Share your insights to be included in our next e-newsletter.
Authored by Agnieszka Kotucz; Edited by Malii Brown
Agnieszka Kotucz is a trainer and facilitator at intercultures Central and Eastern Europe (intercultures CEE) based in Wrocław, Poland. Malii Brown is intercultures’ Director of Global Network Communications and E-Newsletter Editor. Contact the intercultures Global Head Office to learn more about global skills development that supports individuals, teams and organizations in working better globally.
The above article was included in the May 2014 intercultures e-newsletter.
[i] Bloomberg’s methodology to create the 2014 best for business ranking included identifying countries based on their overall business, commerce and trade climate.
Photo credit title photo: Getty Images.