Best Practice 7

During the implementation of this European co-funded project, educational workshops for employers on intercultural skill were held from January 2015 to June 2015. This action was referred to employers from different occupational sectors employing TCNs.

The aim of the workshops was to provide employers with the necessary knowledge about the situation of TCNs in Cyprus, the framework of legislation governing their employment, how to communicate with Third-Country Nationals with the appropriate terminology in order to avoid discrimination and dissatisfaction with the ultimate goal of benefiting both employers and TCNs.

The purpose of this programme is to give participants the necessary knowledge related to the employment situation of TCNs as well as communication and intercultural skills and respect on diversity. 

In the framework of the workshops the trainees gained knowledge and acquired skills regarding new approaches in the professional field and appropriate handling of multiculturalism as well as the respect for diversity. During the workshops various good practices were presented.

The seminars consisted of 3 sections: The first section was informative on the situation in Cyprus and the existing legislation, the second part was of a workshop nature and involved the development of skills to handle diversity, new approaches in the professional field and multiculturalism, while the third part covered short presentations of cultures from TCNs.

The focus of this programme was on the intercultural communication. Employers had the opportunity to learn about intercultural communication and get in touch with several relative topics and aspects of it such as the dimensions of the culture, identity, diversity, stereotypes and prejudices, the barriers in the intercultural communication, body language, verbal and non-verbal communication, cultural shock, the ‘’foreign’’ client, the ‘’foreign employee’’, strategies for forming a culture of diversity in the business, diversity and ways to deal with it.

Τhe actions of this programme were the following:

1)      Action 1: Design of curriculum and workshop’s training material (focus group, planning of the programme, design of the methodological tools-educational videos, experiential exercises and games, icebreakers, design of training material, design of written exam)

2)      Action 2: Promotion of the project and the identification of participants (definition of the advertising campaign’s philosophy, creation of the project’s website http://multiculture-workshops.mmclearningsolutions.com/, creation of project’s poster, design and printing of leaflets, implementation of emails campaign)

3)      Action 3: Composition and training of the trainers team

4)      Action 4: Organisation of the training (timeline, training rooms, training groups, publication of the training plan in the website, preparation an printing of the training material)

5)      Action 5: Implementation of the training (22 training groups, 328 participants, 2232 working hours)

6)      Action 6: Evaluation of the project (by the participants, by the trainers, via a written test, internal evaluation)

7)      Action 7: Coordination of the project (monitoring of the natural and economic object of the project, preparation of reports, project team meetings)

8)      Action 8: Information and Publicity (publications in the daily press, newsletters, social media marketing campaigns).

The action is innovative on its own as usually actions focus on the target groups i.e. TCNs while the action works on employers to understand, respect and be able to work with the TCNs.

Employers employing TCNs have cultivated intercultural and communication skills through the Employers Programme, and also the necessary knowledge about several aspects of the employment of TCNS in Cyprus.  In addition, they had the opportunity to develop principles and values such as respect on diversity and multiculturalism, acceptance, equity and equality.