How to Achieve Effective Intercultural Communication

By: Erik Angelone

Intercultural communication

As the world of business continues to become more global, it’s important for companies to have team members with intercultural communication skills. By achieving effective communication all over the world, you can interact more efficiently, connecting and creating valuable relationships.

How to Succeed in Global Communication Within the Workplace

It’s important to promote your company globally, especially if the goal is to reach audiences from all over the world. By educating yourself on how to successfully communicate with others, you can build relationships, but also better understand the market you’re trying to target.

In order to successfully navigate intercultural communication, here are some tips you’ll want to follow:

  • Hire multilingual staff – By bringing on employees who speak multiple languages, you can improve communication for your staff, but also better serve customers who may need a translator.
  • Be considerate of other languages on your website – By translating or localizing your web content, anyone who visits your site can fully understand the information you are looking to convey, getting rid of any possible confusion.
  • Establish a consistent meeting culture – In a world of global communication, face-to-face interaction may not always be possible. For a smooth workflow, you can instead set a regular schedule of meetings over video. Thanks to the technology we have today, we can utilize business communication tools such as Zoom or Google Meet. 
  • Create an effective data flow – Considering you’ll have workers from many different backgrounds, you’ll want to ensure there is an easy way to share data and documents for everyone on your team. By utilizing a shared content repository such as on Google Drive or Dropbox, everyone will be able to effectively collaborate.
  • Offer the same services in local languages – Customer service is a terrific resource for customers and clients when issues arise, so it’s important to make sure that you offer these tools in the local languages of anywhere you are doing business. Translation and localization play an important role with this in mind.
  • Educate yourself on body language and nonverbal communication – While verbal communication is key, you want to make sure you have a thorough understanding of appropriate etiquette in both verbal and nonverbal cues. You want to respect everyone’s culture and that’s why it will be helpful to do some research on the correct skills when communicating.

Why Choose Kent State for Developing Your Intercultural Communication Skills

At Kent State, we recognize how vital translation is in the world of business. By utilizing effective translation in global communication, you can remove any language barriers, giving you the ability to build relationships and communicate more effectively.

By pursuing a career as a translator in global business communication, you can help close language barriers and create a bridge for companies to better understand and respect all cultures. Our translation programs provide you with a wide variety of opportunities once you graduate such as careers in literary translation, community translation and more!

When you choose Kent State, you’ll receive a firm foundation in translation studies and obtain the skills needed for your translation career. Depending on your needs, we offer both an onsite and online program! Along with the flexibility we provide, other benefits you’ll reap by selecting Kent State include:

  • Ability to choose from six language concentrations
  • Access to multilingual computing laboratory with state-of-the-art software
  • Excellent employment prospects
  • Internship programs with language service providers
  • Personalized guidance by faculty for M.A. capstone project

Are you ready to take the next step toward pursuing your M.A. in Translation? Discover the world of intercultural communication by applying to our program!

Enter the World of Global Business Communication with Kent State’s Help

We provide you the resources and supportive faculty so that you’re able to achieve success during and after your time with us. By choosing a career in global communication, you can help spread ideas and facilitate communication in diverse fields.

If you’re interested in learning more about what our translation programs entail, be sure to request information from us! We look forward to hearing from you.