Supporting international postdocs
International mobility is quite common in academia at any career stage. More so, at postdoctoral level, when the positions become fewer and the renowned research teams or experts in specific fields might be on the other side of the world.
If you find yourself employing, and later supporting, an international postdoc, there are some points that you might want to consider, to best start your professional relationship with them.
National and international bureaucratic hurdles
International staff will most likely need to apply for a visa to work in your institution. You should be able to direct your potential postdoc to the correct department within professional services, that can support them in applying for the correct permits.
Be aware that visa applications can require a lot of paperwork for the postdoc to complete and can require a relatively long time to be processed by the relevant embassies/consulates/Home Office. This might be a source of anxiety for both you as a manager of a team and/or project that needs to make steady progress, and your future postdoc who might be waiting for the paperwork to come through and living in a precarious financial situation.
Once the work permit is granted and the postdoc can move to your country, they will find themselves dealing with other hurdles. These will go from opening a bank account which requires a residency address and proof of employment, to finding long-term accommodation which might demand (inexistent-to-the-postdoc) references of previous property owners or big financial commitment.
Be prepared to have a less-then-focused new staff member in the first few weeks, while they try to sort their life in a new country!
Finally, visas are often dependent on specific conditions, such as salary and employer. In particular, visas are connected to the specific contract offered to the postdoc, and thus they are limited in time – and sometimes need to be reviewed even before the end of a contract depending on Home Office requirements. Having short term employment will mean that your postdoc will need to apply for a new visa each time their contract changes, even if they are still part of the same group/team or if the contract is just an extension. This process requires an expense of time and money and dealing with stressful bureaucracy. One way of avoiding this would be, for example, to try and offer a longer contract from the start while combining already existing funding: the Research Support Officers in your institution should be able to support you in completing the correct forms to enable this.
Expats and immigrants
Whatever your international postdoc’s intention is regarding moving back to their country of origin, to another country, or making your country their new permanent home, the decision to live away from family and friends is not made light heartedly. Making a new support network is often a lengthy process. Your postdoc might, possibly without showing it or calling it what it is, be homesick at times, or worried for things related to their family which they have no control over.
You can support them through the ebbs and flows of settling-in by giving them space to share their thoughts without feeling judged, and by allowing them time to work through this in their own terms.
Travelling back to their home country can be an essential element of their own wellbeing. They might prefer and be able to go often, or they might only travel back seldom for a longer period. Being aware of this and showing them your willingness to potentially adapt work timelines, patterns, or responsibilities with mutual agreement, will make them feel accepted and establish a stable ground for a healthy professional relationship.
Diverse cultural and social norms
Cultural identity is not only unique to one country or nation or area, but it can also be unique to an individual. Working in a multicultural team is not without its challenges.
Your own intercultural awareness comes into play and is a crucial element in supporting your international postdocs.
You can gain a better understanding of the areas in which you are already an expert and those in which you might want to develop with guidance from Sally Walker in this video and accompanying workbook.
Hi, I’m Sally Walker, Director of SW Career Coaching Limited and I’m a Career and Intercultural Coach. I’ll be guiding you through this video which is designed to raise awareness of your cultural identity and will also help you to identify your current level of intercultural competence. It’s hoped that these insights will contribute to you thriving in multicultural work settings. Please refer to the accompanying workbook, as well, for full information and further resources.
As a result of engaging with this recording, and the accompanying workbook, I hope that you’ll gain a greater awareness of your own cultural identity and intercultural preferences, to enable you to build stronger and more empathetic working relationships in a multicultural setting. In addition, you’ll learn how to assess your current level of intercultural competence and identify your intercultural strengths which will be important to highlight in job applications and at interview, as well as clarifying any development areas to be addressed in future.
In this video, I’m going to cover these key areas: identifying personal cultural identities, ways to self-assess your current level of intercultural competence. Thirdly, showing a dimensional framework to highlight your intercultural preferences. Fourthly, how to use external resources to assess your level of intercultural competence. Finally. I’ll help you focus on your intercultural strengths and development areas. Please refer to the recording entitled ‘Intercultural competence and how it can help you thrive in multicultural work settings’ for full definitions of what we mean by culture and multicultural work setting.
As a reminder, intercultural competence, or having a global mindset, is described by Deardorff as, ‘The knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required to get along effectively with an individual or a team with a different cultural identity to you.’ To work effectively with multicultural colleagues it can, therefore, be helpful initially to be aware of your own, cultural identity or make-up. Equipped with these insights will potentially be easier to recognise areas of cultural common ground, as well as differences between yourself and others.
Cultural identity is described by Adrian Holliday as, ‘The collection of our multiple identities.’ These identities derive from the numerous social groupings that we’re part of, including those related to our nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, family position, religion, hobbies, occupation, political ties and education. How do you identify yourself? Completing the culture-flower exercise yourself in the workbook might be helpful. Add in one of your multiple identities per petal.
For example, son, French, cricket player, Muslim, only child, university educated. You can see my own examples shared here on screen. The purpose of the exercise is to raise awareness of your own cultural complexity and the output could be shared with new colleagues or your manager in order to build trust and seek out greater common ground together. This is a useful ice-breaker-type exercise. Once you have a sense of your own, complex cultural identity, we can explore your current level of intercultural competence and how well you practice the skills and attitudes which make up this particular competence.
We want to know how well you tolerate newness, ambiguity and uncertainty. We can identify whether you actively listen, evaluate and interpret situations of people without judgement and with curiosity and empathy. Thirdly, reflect on your attitudes towards certain verbal and non-verbal behaviours. Initially, you might begin by asking yourself some self-reflective questions and noting down your responses in the workbook. How do you demonstrate that you value people from other cultures, even if you disagree with their beliefs and opinions? What specific actions do you take in meetings with colleagues to do this? Do you check and verify your understanding when listening to or reading something, rather than jumping to conclusions or assumptions?
How curious are you about other cultures? What have you done recently to demonstrate this? Such as volunteering in a new cultural environment, or inviting a colleague with a different cultural background to lunch. Are there particular verbal or non-verbal behaviours that make you feel uncomfortable? Be honest, how do you feel about eye contact, tone or pace of voice, tolerance of accents?
Finally, what language skills do you have? A dimensional framework, such as the one outlined on-screen, based on the work of Erin Meyer in her book ‘The Culture Map’ which is mentioned in the resources list, can be a helpful tool for raising your awareness of your own behaviours and preferred ways of communicating and interacting. Secondly, this knowledge may enable you to interpret and appreciate someone else’s perspective and behaviour without falling into the cultural trap of othering; that is, labelling others as wrong because their preferences or behaviours are different to your own.
In your workbook, as I describe each of the dimensions, you might want to place an X to mark your own, typical, natural preference on each of the eight scales. The first dimension is about how you prefer to communicate based on your cultural identity and background. You may be a low-context communicator which means you’re explicit and direct; communication is precise, simple and clear, and messages are expressed and understood at face value. ‘I think we should do it this way,’ is an example of low-context communication.
Alternatively, you might be a high-context communicator where you’re more implicit and indirect and where messages are implied rather than plainly expressed. A high-context communicator might say, ‘I wondered if we could possibly consider other alternative options of doing this.’ You may be somewhere in between on a scale. Where do you place your X in your workbook?
If you’re a low-context communicator, you might perceive the high-context communicators to be confusing, difficult to read or understand or know what they really want or mean. A high-context communicator might feel that a low-context communicator is being rude and they prefer their own style which they perceive as being polite and subtle.
The second dimension is around evaluating and how you naturally give negative feedback, whether this is done directly, frankly, bluntly or indirectly where the messages are delivered softly and subtly and positive messages are often used to wrap around negative ones. Place your X in your workbook. The next dimension relates to persuading and whether you prefer initially to focus on principles or applications first. Principles first, means that you present a theory or concept first before moving to practical recommendations and applications first, means you prefer the reverse approach.
When presenting to audiences with different cultural backgrounds to you, this is a really important one to find out about ahead of time. An American colleague who has a preference for taking action and making recommendations started with these in a presentation to German colleagues and was frustrated when they interrupted her early on and asked her to present the background methodology to the project first off. They preferred principles rather than applications first.
Fourthly, on the leading dimension, do you naturally prefer an egalitarian, flatter organisation structure or a hierarchical or multi-layered organisation where status and seniority are often of great importance? What about on the deciding dimension? Do you prefer a consensual approach, sharing decision-making in a group or a top-down approach where decisions are made by individuals, very often the manager, about what’s to be done?
On the trusting dimension, what’s your cultural preference? Do you naturally get stuck straight into a task and build the necessary working relationships to get things done as you go along? Or do you prefer to spend time, initially, building key relationships and trust by sharing meals or having informal coffee meetings and then progressing to the task? On the seventh dimension, are you someone who views disagreement and debate as positive for the team? Open confrontation is accepted and appropriate and will not negatively impact the relationship. Or, are you someone who prefers to avoid confrontation as you view this as inappropriate and believe it will break group harmony or negatively impact on your working relationship?
Finally, where will you place your X on the scheduling dimension? Do you have a linear approach to time where project steps are approached in sequential fashion, completing one step at a time? The focus is on the deadline and sticking to the schedule. Here, the emphasis is on promptness and organisation. Is your cultural preference for flexible time where project steps are approached in a fluid manner, changing tasks as opportunities and needs arise? The focus is on adaptability and flexibility is valued over structure. Please remember that in doing this exercise there is absolutely no right or wrong answer. All of these preferences can be viewed positively if we’re aware that when someone has a different preference to us, they are not doing so to be deliberately difficult or rude but as a product of their cultural upbringing, their background and personality.
Take a moment to reflect before we move on about any specific intercultural incidents that you’ve experienced which relate to one or more of these eight dimensions. Where have someone else’s preferences been different to your own? Was this during an interview process, meeting new colleagues or whilst making a presentation? How can you, now, re-evaluate the incident so that you have greater empathy for someone else’s preferences?
To enrich the self-assessment reflective work that you’ve done here on your levels of intercultural competence, you could also use certain external resources to help you gain even more information and insight about yourself. For example, I highly recommend that you complete the assessment tools available via the website if you haven’t done so already. You could choose to invest in the Intercultural Readiness Check, or IRC profile tool, with a personalised hour of debrief and coaching which is available via an external consultant, Alexandra Beaulieu. Please refer to the resources list in the workbook for more details.
Finally, you might choose to seek feedback from others whose opinions you trust and respect. Often, principal investigators, peers, supervisors and other knowledgeable others can help you to identify your intercultural blind spots which may be talents and strengths that you do not recognise in yourself or potential areas for development in future. You’ll find a feedback template in the workbook, that you can use to send to a number of individuals asking them to rate you on various aspects of intercultural skills and attitudes.
Armed with all this information about your current level of intercultural competence, which combines your own self-reflection with the feedback of others, you now have your baseline. You hopefully know more about your cultural self and the ways that you currently interact with people from different cultural groupings. You should be better able to identify your intercultural strengths such as whether you’ve got strong questioning, listening, evaluating or relationship-building skills.
Do you test out alternatives, pause rather than rush to conclusions? Do you demonstrate attitudes of cultural curiosity and empathy? Many of these skills and attitudes are often naturally evident in a PhD student because of the very nature of the sort of research work you’re involved with. Are you highlighting them in your job applications and valuing them as highly as you should be doing?
Finally, what does the reflective work you’ve done tell you about any development areas or gaps that you have that you want to address going forwards? What actions could you commit to, to develop your intercultural competence further? I hope that as a result of this short recording that you have a greater self-awareness of your personal cultural identity, your cultural make-up and of your cultural preferences in the workplace.
I hope that you’re much clearer about your intercultural strengths and will be seeking to emphasise these in future recruitment processes and when joining new, multicultural teams. Finally, perhaps you’ve identified areas for future growth and intercultural competence development. Please, do refer to the list of resources in the workbook for further information on the topics covered here.
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Yours and your postdoc’s cultural and social norms will heavily influence your relationship from the very start at interview, to the day-to-day in meetings and email interactions. Here are some tips for a better mutual understanding:
- Be aware of differences in body language and non-verbal behaviour
- Be aware of language challenges
- Build trust and common agreement to make everyone feel safe and welcome
If you want more tips watch this video by Sally Walker with the accompanying workbook.
Hi, I’m Sally Walker, director of SW Career Coaching Limited, and I’m a career and intercultural coach. I’ll be guiding you through this video, which is designed to help you, as PIs, gain top intercultural tips to use when working in multicultural work settings; in particular, when carrying out interviews, leading and participating in meetings, and in the use of email.
The aim in so doing is that you develop more effective relationships at work and achieve greater collaboration and productivity. Please do refer to the accompanying workbook as well for full information and further resources. As a result of engaging with this recording and the workbook, I hope that you’ll become more consciously aware of when unexpected intercultural incidents are occurring and will have gained some key intercultural tips to address these situations going forward.
Here is an outline on screen of our agenda. Let’s remind ourselves of the definition on screen of intercultural competence as the measure of your effectiveness when interacting with others who don’t share the same cultural background as you. It’s helpful to reflect how regularly you consciously demonstrate the skills and attitudes, which combine to make up intercultural competence or global mindset. Where have you shown a tolerance for newness or uncertainty recently? Where have you used the skills of active listening, asking questions, reflecting back what’s been said by paraphrasing, and then suspending judgement whilst you evaluate a situation? How do you build trusting relationships, showing empathy and sensitive cultural curiosity? How would you rate your language, foreign language skills, and how comfortable are you with different types of non-verbal behaviour?
Organisational cultures in academia and beyond can vary widely. Cultures are fluid rather than fixed; as a PI you have an opportunity to influence and even create the culture within your multicultural research teams. When you interact with somebody who is operating to a different set of cultural norms to your own, it’s possible that you might experience a sense of surprise, tension, or even conflict at certain points. These unexpected moments can be described as intercultural incidents. They most frequently happen when you’re first meeting someone from a different cultural background.
For example, during the recruitment process; at initial meetings; when exchanging gifts; during the appraisal process; via our email communication. In addition to the top intercultural tips that I’m going to share with you in a moment, you can also use the dimensional framework and three-R model which are mentioned in the Building A Multicultural Team Culture Using Intercultural Competence video on the Prosper website, to help you interpret and learn from these incidents.
As a PI, you’re likely to be involved in the application and interview processes of your academic institution. As mentioned earlier, when you’re reviewing an application, or carrying out an interview with an individual with a different cultural background to your own, it’s possible that unexpected intercultural incidents might arise. So, first off, raise your awareness of this possibility.
In addition, aim to put yourself in the shoes of the interviewee. What different intercultural expectations might they have of this situation? What interview style might they be more familiar with? If you’re unsure, then seek out the advice of an intercultural mentor, somebody who’s familiar with the applicant’s culture in question. Do be conscious of the important intercultural concept of saving face and ensure that you make the applicant feel welcome and respected.
The applicant may treat you with more deference than you’re used to, for example, by preferring to use titles rather than first-name terms. You can ask them to adopt your cultural norm; be accepting if they find that challenging to do so, if at all. Do make sure to monitor your assumptions about acceptable body language and non-verbal behaviour. Don’t assume that all cultures have the same norms. Nodding and shaking heads, eye contact or no eye contact, can all mean very different things depending on the cultural background of the individual you’re interviewing.
If you come from a culture where eye contact is viewed as a mark of honesty and sincerity, and the lack of eye contact suggests a lack of trustworthiness or self-confidence, then do remember that in some cultures a lack of direct eye contact reflects respect for seniority. Do be accommodating of language challenges, consciously speak more slowly and clearly, and aim to avoid jargon and institution-specific acronyms. Agree that it’s acceptable to ask for the applicants to repeat something and for them to ask you to do so as well.
Be aware of your own preferences as an interviewer. Do you have an informal or a more formal style, which might indicate preference for either egalitarian or hierarchical culture? Are you task or relationship orientated? If the former, then interviews you conduct are likely to be results-focused, diving in straight away to competency-type questions. If the latter, and you’re relationship-orientated, you would concentrate on building rapport, discussing common interests or connections between yourself and the applicant.
Ideally, I would aim for a combination of the two approaches, so that whatever the applicant’s own preference or expectation is, they will feel comfortable with at least part of the interview. Finally, consider if you have an explicit communication style, meaning you’re naturally direct, or if you have a more indirect preference. If the latter, then you might need to consciously simplify your questions and make their intent more explicit, particularly if the applicant doesn’t share the same mother tongue as you. Whether you’re leading or participating in a multicultural meeting, the following strategies may help to demonstrate your intercultural competence and achieve more effective outcomes.
Aim to gain a balance of task and relationship building in the meeting, where you create time for introductions and interactions. You could include a cultural icebreaker activity at the start of a meeting, such as the Culture Flower Exercise, which is demonstrated in the video entitled Cultural Identity and Assessing Your Current Level of Intercultural Competence on the Prosper website. In addition, what about agreeing on a longer communal lunch period or more coffee breaks for interaction? In a meeting, do all that you can to help participants find common ground together by introducing knowledge of their culture into the content of the meeting.
For example, by including words from their language into a presentation or by celebrating special cultural dates. Another useful tip to ensure more equal engagement in a meeting is allow time for team members to write down questions or comments and share them, potentially anonymously, in advance rather than seeking spontaneous input during the meeting. Culturally, this is far more likely to lessen verbal power and status issues and will also better accommodate those who have a more reflective preference.
Finally, in terms of our third set of top intercultural tips, these relate to how you communicate via email in a multicultural environment, particularly where colleagues or postdocs don’t all share a common mother tongue or fluent language ability. Focus on sharing factual information in your emails rather than criticism or emotions. Aim to keep your email relatively short, simple, and polite. Make clear what’s being requested, and within what timeframe.
Be very sensitive about using jargon or slang or proverbs, complex words, and acronyms, in case your reader is unfamiliar with these. So, keep these to a minimum. Obviously, they might lead otherwise to misunderstanding or might highlight a power status difference. Remember to be sensitive as to how you address people. Echo their use of titles and credentials. In general, always aim to respond rather than react to emails. Consider if you might be misinterpreting what someone else has written, or the tone used, due to cultural differences. Let things cool off overnight before replying.
Finally, I’d recommend that you don’t rely on email. Make the effort and take time to communicate in a variety of ways, including phone, video, platform, and face-to-face, to build trust and common agreement and to avoid misunderstandings. The effort taken to build multicultural relationships will mean that your project or research task actually will get completed more quickly.
I hope that you’ve now refreshed your understanding of the concept of organisational cultures and recognised your opportunity as a PI to build an effective team culture. I hope too that you appreciate the impact of intercultural competence when you’re interviewing, leading or participating in meetings, and using email; that you feel you’ve gained numerous practical tips for better handling these specific situations in future where intercultural incidents frequently arise.
Please do refer to the list of resources included in the workbook for further information on the topics covered here. Please do reach out, stay in touch, and let me know if you have any queries or comments.
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Career development across borders
Finally, one thing to keep in mind is issues around career development for overseas postdocs.
Firstly, HE structures and pathways to permanent academic positions can vary greatly in other countries. For example, in Germany and Italy there are specific rules regarding number and total length of successive temporary contracts at postdoctoral level.
Additionally, your postdoc, who might have experienced a different education system and different training, will benefit from a skills audit. Focusing on this at the beginning of the contract will enable both you and them to identify which areas they will need extra support and address the lacunae in an open and appropriate way. Similarly, this type of gap analysis will support your postdoc to identify the transferable skills they already have and feel more prepared if they decide to move to another sector.
In fact, career decisions for international postdocs might be heavily dependent on their immigration status. Their visa running out almost immediately after the end of a contract might urge them to find a more long-term solution in a different industry, rather than pursuing a more unsteady academic career. Exploring the UK employment landscape will be essential for them. Indeed, career options beyond academia might be very different in their home country or the other countries they have lived in. It might be easier or harder to move across sectors, and transferable skills might be more sought after within different industries. To support them, you can point them to the career clusters or use your own experience in other sectors. And always be open to having a conversation about career progression, wherever that might lead them.