OREANDA-NEWS. November 13, 2015. In 2009, the team began offering a training program for the Fuel Systems department in Powertrain Installation (PTI) with relevant job training. PTI has over 500 engineers across the globe dealing with suppliers in several countries. With so many people in eight regions, a lack of understanding of cultures between engineers from different parts of the world was leading to business inefficiencies. 

For 2014, the team focused on diversity to improve global cultural awareness and understanding within PTI by inviting not just Fuel Systems engineers, but all of PTI.  

2014 was kicked off with a training titled “Global English,” a course taught by Instructional Design Manager Dr. Carol Diroff  that targeted native-English speakers. The class instructed them on how they could effectively communicate with those who speak English as a second language. It was attended by 107 colleagues globally via conference room and remote access.  

The “Global English” training primed engineers for a series of Global Cultural Awareness seminars targeting the eight key regions that PTI interacts with on a regular basis, including Turkey, China, India, Germany, Brazil, the UK, Mexico and the United States. This was the heart of the global cultural awareness push.  

The Global Cultural Awareness series was designed to enhance interactions with colleagues from around the world. Each seminar focused on the business-relevant aspects of cultural diversity between regions, and trained engineers on how they may circumvent issues that can arise due to a cultural misunderstanding from communication.       

Aperian Global, the consulting communications partner, provided two-hour-long training sessions that were held once a month.  Topics included:

  • General information (geography, government, etc.)
  • Core cultural values (how the culture interacts with one another)
  • Working styles (how does the culture function in the workplace)
  • Communication styles (how does the culture communicate in the workplace)
  • Establishing credibility with the team (how to interact with the culture)
  • Leadership styles (how leaders interact with their subordinates in the culture)
  • Building teamwork (how to foster and build a functioning team with the culture) 

A volunteer from within PTI who is from the cultural background that was being discussed acted as the local delegate to provide a more personal (rather than business) perspective by providing an active display of the culture being discussed. To further enhance the global cultural learning experience and to have the trainings be highly interactive and engaging, food and drink was available from the country being discussed. The combination of training session with a local diversity representative proved to be very successful and obtained a great response from the PTI team. 

Each month, approximately 150 colleagues participated in the Global Cultural Awareness sessions. A survey of the regular participants found that the trainings were considered extremely beneficial.  

The Global Cultural Awareness series, along with “Global English,” was a year-long effort devoted to cultural and diversity appreciation. It stressed learning how to communicate with people coming from a diverse background.  

Each of the nine sessions was attended by roughly 150 people.  Our feedback via survey found that we not only succeeded, but managed to encourage our people to think about who they are, what they believe in and how their culture influences their interactions with their teammates, both locally and globally. 

The FSTP team decided to take it a step further by involving a local PTI engineer to represent local diversity. The PTI representatives provided a different, more personal perspective on the country being discussed and further enhanced appreciation and understanding of the culture in question.  

Congratulations to the entire The FSTP team. They recognized the need to enhance diversity in the organization by expanding their wealth of knowledge on the cultures that they work with on a daily basis. Cultural awareness has a positive business impact through enhanced interpersonal understandings and appreciations, which allows teams to build better working relationships. 

“Recognition of the efforts is highly appreciated by the team. Receiving the award has inspired the Fuel System Training Team to Go Further and continue to help enable the global teams in communicating better to demonstrate the One Ford behavior,” said Sumaiya Khwaja, Ford FSTP coordinator, Advanced Electrification Center  and Syed Ali, D&R Engineer, Ford of Britain.