10 Cultural Intelligence Training Courses
We’ve created a list of cultural intelligence training courses to equip your teams with the skills to work harmoniously in a diverse workplace. Learn how cultural intelligence can help you be more successful, perform better, and succeed in a multicultural and global setting.
1. Diversity and Inclusion
Workplace productivity thrives when your employees learn, collaborate, and grow together as a team, regardless of race, gender, ability, and sexual orientation. Shape a more inclusive culture in your workplace and leverage the benefits of a diverse workforce with the help of this cultural intelligence training course by EdApp. This training program tackles the key concepts surrounding diversity and inclusion and how they help cultivate a more accepting organization. It discusses the harmful types and examples of unconscious bias, and shares tips on how your team can steer clear of these unhealthy behaviors. This diversity training course also provides helpful guidelines on using more inclusive language, such as communicating with the LGBTQ community, to help your employees communicate effectively with their colleagues without the likelihood of offending.
Based on a microlearning design model, this EdApp course is easily digestible, and it will only take 5-10 minutes to complete. Plus, each lesson is highly concentrated on the most important topics and concepts, ensuring higher retention.
Cost: Free
Scope: Introduction to diversity and inclusion, types of unconscious bias, cultivating an inclusive organization, inclusive language
Created by EdApp
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2. Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Awareness (AUS)
This EdApp course gives learners a peek into the ethnic culture of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in Australia. In this course, learners will learn all about their history, traditions, and the challenges they’ve faced, and discover how those impacted the living culture of the present. After learning about the Indigenous culture of Australia, this course teaches learners how to respectfully work with people from different cultural backgrounds, values and beliefs.. It also teaches learners about cultural etiquette rules, cross-cultural issues and racism faced by minorities, and various ways to stand up to them, such as speaking up against discrimination and offering support to your colleagues.
While this course is focused on the Indigenous peoples of Australia, it’s fully editable, which means that you can customize the content in this course to fit your cross-cultural training needs. EdApp’s drag-and-drop authoring tool allows you to add content with ease and with no coding knowledge required.
Cost: Free
Scope: Workplace cultural sensitivity, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, racism
Created by EdApp
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3. Cultural intelligence: Become a global citizen
Coursera has partnered with Macquarie University to bring this cultural intelligence training course to life. It starts by discussing the globalization of business and people, along with the drivers of migration, which led us to the concept of the “Global Village”. Learners will then be taught about concepts of cultural understanding, diversity, affinity, and how these contribute to businesses and society. The following topic focuses on the relevance of cultural intelligence (CQ) and the measures one needs to take to improve their cultural strategic thinking and behavioral cultural intelligence. This self-paced course takes around 19 hours to complete and learners will earn a shareable certificate.
Cost: Free
Scope: Globalization, affinities & diversities, importance of CQ, developing CQ
Created by Coursera
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4. Leading Culturally Diverse Teams in the Workplace
FutureLearn’s cultural intelligence training course explores the role of cultural diversity and cross-cultural management in modern workplaces, including the challenges and benefits they can bring to your organization. Tackling these topics will help your team improve their cultural competency and intelligence, and learn to inclusively communicate and collaborate with multicultural teams. As they progress through the course, they will also discover the complexities associated with global virtual teams, alongside some techniques to manage these challenges.
This culture training course is self-paced, which means learners can complete it as quickly or slowly as they like. They will also stay engaged and motivated from a mix of bite-sized videos, articles, discussions, and practical activities. It’s also free to take but you’ll only have 6 weeks of access to it.
Cost: Free
Scope: Key challenges of cultural diversity and how it matters in global teams, harnessing benefits of multicultural teams, leading and communicating with diverse teams
Created by FutureLearn
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5. Cultural Intelligence and Inclusion
This cultural intelligence training course was created to increase awareness of the role of culture in our workplace interactions. Here, learners will become familiar with the Cultural Intelligence (CQ) model and the four main CQ competencies. It then tackles self-awareness by helping learners determine their orientation to achieve personal growth. At the end of this cultural awareness training, learners will be able to apply CQ to boost equality and inclusion, and will also learn best practices for managing a multicultural team.
Cost: Available upon request
Scope: Understanding culture, CQ model, CQ competencies, CQ application for cultural inclusion
Created by Include-Empower.com
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6. Cultural Intelligence Training In The Workplace For Leaders
TrainSmart’s cultural intelligence training course was designed for both employees and leaders who want to succeed in a multicultural global organization. It starts by discussing emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence, along with their competencies. Learners will then be introduced to Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory to learn how to understand and work around cultural differences and cultural sensitivities. To apply and test the knowledge and skills learned, this course also includes customized practice cases.
Cost: Available upon request
Scope: Emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, Hofstede’s six dimensions of culture
Created by TrainSmart
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7. Introduction to Cultural Intelligence
If you want to learn how to leverage the cultural differences in your team, Gugin’s Introduction to Cultural Intelligence is the right choice for you. The course begins by introducing the different layers of culture and emphasizes that there is more than one right way to do things. It then teaches learners how to identify other people’s norms and values based on their multi cultural identities to avoid misunderstanding. Lastly, it will help learners change behaviors and stereotypes to become more open to differences brought about by our individual cultures.
Cost: Available upon request
Scope: Layers of culture, cultural identities, identifying norms & behaviors, changing behaviors
Created by Gugin
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8. Developing Cultural Intelligence
Harvard’s Developing Cultural Intelligence course aims to improve cultural intelligence and combat personal biases. To kick off the course, it discusses what cultural intelligence (CQ) is and why it matters. The next lesson will then help you discover your own CQ and enhance it by managing and recognizing bias and improving decision-making. This cultural sensitivity training will also help you create your own personal action plan to apply what you’ve learned. This course is the priciest on the list but you’ll earn a certificate of participation from the Harvard Division of Continuing Education upon completion.
Cost: $2895 USD
Scope: What is cultural intelligence, importance of cultural intelligence, discovering your CQ, developing an action plan
Created by Harvard Professional Development Programs
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9. Understanding Cross
Alison’s course teaches learners how to bridge cultural communication gaps to avoid misunderstandings at work. It starts by discussing intercultural communication, prejudice, and ethnocentrism. It also covers the common cultural characteristics as well as the divergent ones. Learners will then be taught how to develop cross-cultural communication skills and identify barriers to effective communication. This course is free and takes up to 3 hours to complete. However, you’ll need to pay a fee to get a certificate.
Cost: Free
Scope: Introduction to intercultural communication, developing cross-cultural communication skills, common cultural characteristics
Created by Alison
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10. Diversity and Inclusion in Retail
Diversity and Inclusion in retail is another cultural intelligence training course offered by EdApp, specifically designed for the retail industry. This diversity inclusion course reinforces the values of an inclusive, diverse, and equal workplace and elaborates on the different biases by each individual that they should be aware of. This helps your employees develop the kind of service that creates an inclusive shopping experience for your customers. The course also reiterates the importance of a zero-tolerance discrimination policy and guides your employees in listening to customers.
As EdApp is a mobile-first platform, it makes this course easily accessible for your workforce and its microlearning format enables your learners to complete lessons in just a couple of minutes!
Cost: Free
Scope: Core values of diversity, implicit bias, inclusive shopping experience, discrimination policy, and proper approach to customers
Created by EdApp
Explore the courseBroaden your cultural horizons with cultural intelligence training
Cultural intelligence training helps your teams work effectively and thrive in a multicultural environment. It’s more than just knowing about different cultures but also being able to adapt to diverse contexts and relate to others who come from different cultural backgrounds and cultural values. Developing cultural intelligence is important in an organization as it increases the ways that various cultures operate within the workplace and breaks down each individual’s biases and behavioral patterns that hinder them from success. Overall, gaining cultural intelligence gives your organization a competitive advantage as it leads to better communication, cooperation, teamwork, and overall performance.
Cultural Intelligence Workshops
A cultural intelligence workshop is a type of training that focuses on giving your team a practical learning experience. Typically, this is conducted in person where participants can attend and engage with the instructors or even peers. Here, you’ll learn about the various aspects of cultural intelligence from its definition down to the ways you can execute it in your day-day life. It’s especially helpful in the workplace where you encounter people of different backgrounds and cultures. Through workshops, you’ll have the knowledge and skills to respectfully engage with them, which can be beneficial in building a positive workplace.