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A new report from the Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy explores a range of frontline programs and policy reforms that are providing cutting-edge career navigation, relicensing, gap filling and job search assistance for foreign-trained professionals in a wide range of occupations. The report, Unlocking Skills: Successful Initiatives for Integrating Foreign-Trained Immigrant Professionals, also examines different state policy and licensing contexts that affect these highly skilled individuals, with a focus on the dense thicket of state laws and regulations that slow or prevent qualified individuals from practicing in a wide range of occupations. 

CWB is highlighted on page 11 and 28 of this very informative report.

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The following 4-step strategy has been designed by two highly-respected professionals and experts to help your organization create a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

1.) You need to understand your metrics

How do businesses measure success? By analyzing data results. Along with sales, marketing and accounting, you should develop a method to the measure the amount of diversity and inclusion of employees at your organization. This will allow you to gain visibility and gain positive growth. To analyze the diversity in your company, take a look at the following:

• Resumes received
• Interviews granted
• Job offers extended
• Hires made
• Promotions and career development
• Turnover

Be sure to track this information across each business function and office/region of your organization. Once you are able to collect and analyze this data, “you are tracking what’s valued by your business.” In turn, you will be able to raise awareness and begin formulating a plan to ensure the important of diversity and inclusion.

2.) Train people to become more aware of their biases so they can start to counterbalance them and make better decisions

“A bias is a preference and mental shortcut that impairs rational judgement.”

Inherently, humans tend to associate with people who are similar to themselves. In the workplace, this may become an issue if it is not made consciously aware. It is helpful to create a work environment that encourages employees to engage in open discussions that acknowledge bias thinking/behavior, and work to solve the problem. “Phyllis Cheng, a workplace expert and former Director of Department of Fair Housing and Employment (DFEH), recommends a communication campaign with ‘consistent messaging that helps raise everyone’s awareness about unconscious biases that can affect our conduct. Letting everyone know that we all have unconscious biases, acknowledging them, and showing how they can impact the workplace starts the process of minimizing its negative impact on the workplace are ways to start that safe, informal discussion.’”

3.) You need to foster a supportive environment with opportunities for coaching and mentoring

Assuring young people will have mentors is a key component to a successful future for the work world. By providing professional connections, helping develop career skills and giving ideas on how to get ahead in your career, mentorship is essential.

Why should you care about mentors?

• Mentors provide a career playbook and expedite development
• Mentors open doors
• Mentors add credibility and personal branding
• Mentors increase odds for success

However, not everyone has access to a mentor that will help him or her along the way. Eileen Carey, peer mentor expert and co-founder of Glassbreakers, is working to increase opportunities through peer mentorships.

 “The traditional mentorship program was established by men and was hierarchical — mentor, mentee — and when you look at the workforce, there are way too many mentees and not enough mentors. Peer mentorship allows you to have multiple mentors and support each other as you come up.”

With professional support and peer mentorships, young professionals will have a much higher chance at succeeding, and in turn, so will your company or organization.

4.) You need to create an HR system that helps minimize the bias in management’s decision-making

Relating back to the first point, you must be able to audit and assess the possible judgments made by your organization, and how it may be hindering opportunities for people in the minority.

“Phyllis Cheng notes that ‘an efficient way to screen out bias is to have a second and/or third person weigh in on management decisions such as interviewing, hiring, career development and discipline/termination. Audits can help discover problems and identify where bias may be negatively impacting the workplace.’”

Conclusion

 Organizations and executive teams across the globe are recognizing the social demand for increased diversity and inclusion. In order to take steps forward to increasing diversity in your place of work, the next steps you should take may be as follows:

• Start with your metrics
• Start a dialogue and raise awareness
• Facilitate a supportive environment with coaching and mentoring
• Conduct audits and build a framework that screens our the bias in management decisions

After analyzing the data in your organization’s hiring process and promotion efforts, you’ll be able to effectively make smarter decisions and create diversity and inclusion. This will allow your business to prosper in a world of globalization and new ideas.

Source: http://blog.emtrain.com/4-great-ways-to-foster-diversity-in-the-workplace-and-stop-bias

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There are many ways we can improve our conversations, but one of the most efficacious is a two-step process that enables you to attune with the other while creating the shared meaning that will nourish both of you. The first step is to ask a question and the second step is to listen receptively to what the other person has to say. Why is this so effective? First, it’s powerful because questions guide our attention. When we ask a sincere question with the intention to really understand the other person, we are directing our brains to become more open and receptive. What neuroscience research shows is that brains are designed to attune with other brains. When we ask a sincere question, we direct our brains to focus receptively on the other person, increasing the odds that our brains will attune and begin to synchronize with the other person’s brain. This attuning and synchronizing is an inherently pleasurable and energizing experience that helps us get into a more optimal state of mind. If you’ve ever had the experience of singing harmony in a choir or marching in step with other people, you know how good it feels when our brains attune and synchronize.

But to get the full effect of this we need to listen openly and receptively to what the other person says in response. We have to intend to understand them fully. This can be challenging because when we listen receptively, we risk hearing things that may change us or call our beliefs into question. This is one of the main reasons many of our conversations run so mindlessly: we don’t want to risk hearing things that may call our beliefs into question or change the way we see the world and ourselves. So to protect ourselves from this, we don’t ask questions sincerely and we don’t listen receptively. Asking the right question at the right time and in the right way is a powerful tool for improving our conversations that require both courage and skill. When done well, asking the right question is one of the best ways that I know for improving conversations and building more satisfying relationships. One of the most useful questions I know is what exactly does that mean? This question offers us a way to avoid what I call the “trap of similarity.” The trap of similarity can take many forms, but one of the most common occurs when two people use the same word but mean different things. This trap is especially common when we use abstract words that are emotionally powerful such as truth, love, freedom, value, patriotism, safety and many more. One couple I know had arguments for years every time they talked about one of them feeling “vulnerable.” Their arguments finally dissolved after they realized they were using the same word, but meaning very different things. In this regard, words are like arrows.

Arrows don’t contain pain, but when they hit you, you feel pain. In the same way, words don’t contain meaning as much as they elicit meaning in us when we say, hear or think them. I try to ask what exactly does that mean whenever I’m in a conversation and find myself being triggered by what the other person just said. When I stay present enough to notice that we may be using the same word or words in different ways, asking this question sends two important messages to the other person. First, it alerts them that we are not fully attuned and that I’m not sure what they mean. This is an implied request that we define our terms so we can make sure we’re on the same page. Second, it sends the message that I respect the other’s point of view and am interested in understanding it better. This message of respect plus the request for clarification is a powerful way to avoid misunderstandings and to create shared meaning. Whether you are communicating with someone from another culture, talking with friends and family, or just trying to clarify your own thinking, what exactly does that mean is a powerful tool when asked sincerely. It’s just five little words but if you listen to the answer receptively, the effects can be huge. Give it a try and see how it works for you. You may be very surprised how such a simple question can improve the quality of so many conversations. If you’d like to learn more about the trap of similarity, the power of inquiry or about the psychology of intercultural communication in general, you might enjoy my new book: Connecting Hearts and Minds: Insights, Skills and Best Practices for Dealing with Differences by Greg Nees.
(C) 2017 Greg Nees –All rights reserved

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CWB in the News

Overcoming “Brain Waste”: Foreign-Trained Professionals Seek Return to their Fields- Colorado Trust

Read about the struggles and successes from two CWB doctors who matched to residency in this article from the Colorado Trust by Anna Boiko-Weyrauch. 

April 14, 2017

New MPI Report Examines Initiatives that Help Highly Skilled Immigrants with Foreign-Earned Degrees Counter Brain Waste

With nearly 2 million college-educated immigrants and refugees in the United States unable to fully utilize their professional skills, better understanding of the elements of successful programs and policies that

April 14, 2017

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Rosanna brings passion, excitement and a curiosity for learning to her work with clients. Rossana has delivered training modules to enhance intercultural effectiveness and global leadership development, including effective communication, accountability, trust building, leading with a coaching style, team building, corporate culture shaping, and other topics. Some of her clients include Apple, ArcelorMittal, Bridgestone, Volkswagen, Honeywell Aerospace, Schering Plough, SIEMENS, Wal-Mart International, Pemex, Chrysler and Rubbermaid, among others. In the banking industry she has worked with Santander International supporting international wealth management investors in their understanding of Latin American cultural patterns that impact effective client relationships. With Scotiabank in Mexico and Canada she supported the enhancement of working relationships between the two cultures. Her coaching experience has given Rossana the insights and tools to explore people’s deep vision of the world to support the development of more effective alternatives for personal and professional growth.

The Cultural Detective methodology is central to Rossana’s approach to collaboration and personal and organizational high performance. Rossana has an undergraduate degree in clinical psychology and received a master’s degree in intercultural management from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. She also completed the Ontological Coaching certification program at Newfield Network. Rossana lives in Boulder, CO with her husband Steve where they enjoy growing their own vegetables, cycling and skiing. Her other favorite activities include dancing, mushroom hunting, traveling and cooking.

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She is an accomplished intercultural trainer, having designed and led workshops for higher education, not-for-profit, governmental, and corporate clients in the United States and abroad. Among her favorite appointments are training for The Scholar Ship, a transnational academic program housed on a passenger ship; offering pre-departure and on site orientations for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia; leading a three-year long cultural competence initiative for the Division of Student Affairs at UMBC; and facilitating intercultural communication workshops for international Master’s students at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

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Cultural competency doesn’t necessarily mean that one must be an expert in all the world’s cultures. Instead, it provides the groundwork for a person to consciously understand business from different cultural perspectives. “The Business Model of Intercultural Analysis (BMIA) uses the following six ‘comprehension lenses’ to examine enterprise-wide cross cultural challenges: cultural themes, communication, group dynamics, ‘globalization,’ process engineering, and time orientation.”

Please read the blog post written by Denise Hummel, CEO of Universal Consensus, to examine these cultural business lenses through examples of American executives interacting with Chinese executives here.

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The National Education Association (NEA) defines cultural competence in K-12 teaching as “having awareness of one’s own cultural identity while having the ability to understand group differences that make each classroom, and even each student, unique.” Furthermore, the NEA has formulated the following list of important skills to increase cultural competency in teachers to improve student achievement in diverse classrooms.

5 Basic Cultural Competent Skill Areas

-Valuing Diversity “means respecting and accepting different cultural backgrounds, customs, ways of communicating, traditions, values.”

-Being Culturally Self-Aware “is when an educator sums up his or her own experiences and identifies where they fit in family school and society.”

-Dynamics of Difference “is when an individual recognizes mistaken cross-cultural communication and positively responds to the situation.”

-Knowing of Students’ Culture “is important, because it is when teachers have a base of knowledge of their students’ culture.”

-Institutionalizing Cultural Knowledge and Adapting to Diversity “is assessing the culturally competency of educators and the schools they work in, then taking the next step to provide training and knowledge to serve their students and the community.”

Teachers that possess these skills are more likely to incorporate lesson plans with diverse perspectives and cultures, hence, increase student success rates. The TeacherMatch Educators Professional Inventory (EPI) is a data driven platform that “identifies success indicators in highly effective teachers, including cognitive ability, attitudinal factors, teaching skills and qualifications.”

To learn more about hiring culturally competent teachers, please read Amy Vracar’s, Partnerships Manager at TeacherMatch, blog post here.

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