In today’s increasingly global environment, companies need to maintain what I call “cross-cultural fitness” – a healthy company environment in which different cultures are understood and respected. For the Japanese company operating outside Japan, this means that the Japanese at headquarters in Japan and the Japanese expatriates assigned to overseas locations are knowledgeable about different cultures and take those cultures into account in their business activities. It also means that that non-Japanese who work for the company at its various locations are informed about Japanese culture and take it into account when working with their Japanese colleagues.

Many companies seek to attain this level of cross-cultural fitness through provision of training seminars. As someone who teaches cross-cultural training seminars for a living, naturally I think this is a good thing. However, maintaining a positive cross-cultural environment is like maintaining one’s physical fitness – just one great workout won’t keep you fit forever, you have to continue to exercise on an ongoing basis. People need to continually maintain and expand their cross-cultural awareness on a daily basis. Also, newcomers to the organization need to be provided with cross-cultural information. If they are not, then the level of cultural awareness in the organization will be diluted.

This issue of newcomers is a particularly important one at Japanese companies, due to the frequent rotation of Japanese expatriates. The turnover of locally-hired employees also creates a need for continual training.

Expatriate preparation is limited

Many overseas operations of Japanese companies leave the cultural preparation of expatriates to their company’s head office. However, many Japanese companies offer absolutely no pre-departure training whatsoever to their staff who will be assigned overseas, leaving them completely unprepared. There are some Japanese companies that do offer pre-departure training. However, for a variety of reasons, these trainings are often not sufficient to fully prepare those going overseas. These reasons include the following:

Content issues: The typical pre-departure courses offered by Japanese companies in Japan tend to spend the most time on the details of the company’s compensation and benefit scheme for expatriates, and issues such as children’s schooling, avoiding kidnapping and other dangers, etc. These are all important topics to learn about, but are not directly relevant to helping the employee increase their effectiveness in the work environment. Little, if any, time is spent on cultural topics. In other cases, the only pre-departure training offered is an English language class. I’ve talked to teachers at English language schools in Japan who had panicked students about to be sent on assignments abroad who were not receiving any preparation other than English classes, and who peppered them with questions about their destinations that the instructors were not prepared to answer. In either case, employees generally do not receive a full, in-depth cross-cultural program that would truly enable them to be optimally effective in their assignment. When I asked one of my clients, an HR professional, about the pre-departure training that was offered to him before leaving Japan, he said the contents were merely “trivia.”

Focus issues: In the United States, pre-departure cross-cultural training for expatriates is typically offered on a one-on-one basis, focusing on the country where the employee will be posted. In contrast, Japanese companies tend to offer cross-cultural training only to groups of departing expatriates. The participants are usually destined for various corners of the globe, so by necessity the training offered is general rather than specific to their destinations. This general information, while useful, is usually not sufficient to fully equip someone to be optimally effective in a specific country.

Participation issues: Many departing Japanese expatriates who should receive cross-cultural training never have the opportunity to participate in the sessions offered by their companies. There are several reasons why this happens. In some cases, the assignment is made so suddenly that there is simply no time to attend the course. In other cases, the employee is so busy wrapping up their previous assignment that they don’t feel they have the time to attend the course. In other cases, their current supervisors do not understand the importance of such training, and do not encourage them to attend. Generally, there are no repercussions for not attending pre-departure training.

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Post-arrival training for expatriates

Even if an in-depth, robust, and country-specific cross-cultural training program were offered to every Japanese expatriate who is transferred overseas, this would not be sufficient. This is due to the limitations of pre-departure training. Before moving abroad, the foreign country is merely an abstraction, and there is only so much specific information that someone can absorb. The ideal approach to cross-cultural training for expatriates is a two-step one. The first step is pre-departure, where the emphasis should be on giving the expatriate mental preparation for the transition they are about to make, and a firm overview of the key cultural issues they will face in their assignment. Then, once the expatriate has been in their assignment for a few weeks, a second training should be offered that goes into greater depth and detail. At this point, the expatriate will have had an opportunity to experience the new environment, and will come to the training with many questions. He can then apply the contents to his work immediately.

Furthermore, in many cases expatriates require more than simply cross-cultural training. In their roles as managers, they need to be familiar with the laws and human resource management practices of their country they are staying in. This information is usually too detailed and specific to expect the people at head office in Japan to be able to teach. It’s best conveyed by local experts.

Training for new local employees

“I wish I had received this training when I first joined the company. It would have spared me years of headaches.” This is a common sentiment expressed by long-time local employees of Japanese companies who participate in cross-cultural training for the first time.

For the non-Japanese who joins a Japanese company, particularly if they have a Japanese supervisor or if they work closely with Japanese in other ways, it’s almost like being in a foreign country during their workday. In order for them to be as effective as possible in their positions, they need information about Japanese culture and Japanese organizational dynamics. The sooner this information is provided, the better.

Hopefully, the above discussion will prompt you to look at how your company can maintain its cross-cultural fitness by ensuring that the Japanese expatriates and local hires who join your organization get the cultural information they need.