How can global companies ensure effective interaction between employees and increase relevancy among expanding, international markets? Cultural competency with an emphasis on local traditions, laws and styles, according to Prudential Financial’s Emilio Egea, retired chief diversity officer.

Egea explained during a DiversityInc event how Prudential’s 2011 acquisitions of AIG Star and AIG Edison insurance companies forced Prudential to adopt a global-diversity mindset as “more than 50 percent of employees now speak Japanese.”

He credited the company’s emphasis on cultural competence with its success in forming common goals/connections with its new Japanese businesses and developing internal messaging that stays true to the core corporate culture and company values on an international scale. (Prudential Financial is No. 9 in the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50.)

The audience of corporate diversity leaders and executives was able to ask Egea questions on global diversity, contribute their best practices for cultural competence and diversity-awareness training and share their real-life success stories.

Executives from Deloitte, Monsanto, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, WellPoint and Kaiser Permanente discussed how a culturally competent workplace can help talent development—and productivity—flourish.

Global Diversity: Best Practices for Cultural Competence

• Build understanding and respect for cultural competence
• Ensure senior leaders are culturally competent
• Leverage resource groups to on-board international hires
• Have a consistent way to assess talent development
• Identify implicit biases, both internally and externally
• Use training and education to increase diversity awareness/sensitivity

Click to read the full Are You Culturally Savvy Enough to Profit in a Global Market? article, available to subscribers at DiversityIncBestPractices.com.

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